Posted on 04/09/2020 4:02:13 AM PDT by Bull Snipe
Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia to Union Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant. Lee is the third Confederate General to surrender their army to Grant.
Anyone that criticized Lee was shunned, ridiculed and vilified in the South.
Lose your teeth day...or is it tooth?
I think he was referring in part, his actions at Cedar Creek, Virginia. For the benefit of those not knowledgeable about the battle, Sheridan spent the spring and summer of 1864, destroying the food supply in the Shenandoah Valley. By late September he began to stand down his Army for the winter near Cedar Creek. Sheridan left an un-qualified officer in charge of the Army while he went back to Washington to confer with Lincoln.
The Southern Army, low on provisions, devised a before dawn attack on the Union Army the would involve an all night march over a mountain along a single man path. Other than their weapons, they brought no provisions, assuming they would benefit from the surprise raid.
About 4am, they crossed Cedar Creek and completely routed the first Union Camp, and successively ran over camp after camp.
By noon, the Union Army was fleeing North, up what is today is Route 11 in Virginia.
It should be noted, a loss of this magnitude so close to the election of 1864 (October) could cost Lincoln the election.
The Southern troops stopped their chase of the Northern Army to ransack wagons for shoes and everything else.
Sheridan met his troops fleeing Northward on his return from Washington, and with the help of Custer, executed a flanking move on the Southern troops which were not expecting a counter attack.
By the end of the day, Sheridan had recaptured his former positions, and the Southern Army had little strength left to fight again.
I hope someone makes a movie of this battle sometime - incredible stary.
More than friends. IIRC, Longstreet was related to Grant's wife (cousins?).
Simon Bolivar Buckner, the first Confederate general to surrender to Grant (Fort Donelson, Feb. 1862), had been a friend of Grant’s before the war. Buckner was later governor of Kentucky. His son, Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., was the US Army general in command at the battle of Okinawa and was killed in June 1945. (My father, a US Marine, served under him on Okinawa but I don’t know if he ever saw him in person.)
I was wrong. The Rebs had to turn in their rifles but they were allowed to keep their horses and mules. And they were also given food rations.
Longstreet was best man at Grant’s wedding.
Wow! Thanks for that.
The senior Buckner was 38 at the time of Fort Donaldson in 1862, he was 63 when his son Simon Jr was born in 1886 and lived to age 90 -- passing in 1914.
Simon Jr. was born in 1886, in Kentucky, killed at age 58 in Okinawa, 1845.
Has anyone read "A Stillness at Appomattox" by Bruce Catton? Wondering how you liked it.
Custer gad many great dxploits during the Civil War.
Cedar Creek earned his promotion to brevet Major General.
But it was Custers actions at Appomatax station on the 8th and 9th that forced Lee to surrender at Appomatax. That and the Union force marchjng the troops needed to reinforce the blocking Lee’s escape.
“As the infantry pressed forward, Custer launched a charge that helped turn the Confederate left. The gray lines collapsed and by the end of the day, the Federals held the field once again.
On October 22, Custer departed the Valley for Washington. There, he was to present captured Confederate battle flags to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton at the War Department. The ceremony took place 152 years ago today. At the end of the presentation, to the joy and surprise of Custer, Stanton announced that Custer had been promoted to the brevet rank of Major General. “
Lincoln and Grant shared a similar attitude about the purpose of the war. Lincoln was first impressed by Grant after reading his Paducah Proclamation. Grant had a long history of paroling a lot of prisoners.
I always get a kick out of the ignorance of those Southern Rights supporters today that claim the south to have had a right to keep another in bondage, while explaining that it was not that bondage that was ‘a’ reason for that war.
Yet when ask if it was a rich mans war and a poor mans fight, they will deny it.
Remember the 20 negro law passed by the confederacy?
The southern aristocracy were filthy traitors and DEMOCRATS.
Loved it. Have read everything Catton has written. He is probably my favorite CW author.
Within a year of that promotion he reverted to his rank in the United States Army, i.e. Lieutenant Colonel.
Didn’t Lincoln get shot on Good Friday?
Too many years ago to give you a recommendation now. It’s the third volume of Catton’s Army of the Potomac trilogy. It was written in the 1950’s and was an excellent popular history. I would have to reread it to see how it has held up, but as a mainstream place to start, it would be fine. There has been a tendency in recent decades for military historians to write much more detailed accounts, with an eye towards people who are actually going to visit the battlefields. What you gain in detail, of course, you pay for in length and time.
Yes, 10:13 Friday evening the 14th, died 7:22 Saturday morning.
Sunday the 16th was Easter.
The Wikipedia article on Buckner, Jr., includes a photo from 1945 of him with Marine Gen. Lemuel Shepherd. I have a photo of my father with Lemuel Shepherd (from 1954). So I have three degrees of separation to Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., and four degrees of separation to his father...and five degrees to U.S. Grant.
The senior Buckner's name obviously reflects admiration in the US in the 1820s for a hero of the Latin American wars of independence. There are several places named Bolivar in the US (the largest ones are in Missouri and Tennessee).
It's actually the third volume of Catton's Army of the Potomac trilogy. It's interesting and Catton is an entertaining writer but there are better histories out there. Pick any part of the rebellion and there are fantastic books about it.
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