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| Appomattox Court House |
We are just a few weeks from the 150th anniversary of the effective end of the American Civil War, April 9, 2014, when Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of North Virginia to Federal forces under Ulysses S. Grant. The general mainstream media is almost totally ignoring the anniversary, but the chance it gives us to examine the degree to which we have learned the lessons of the war.
Slavery is gone, never to return, as least in this country. However, in some ways civil rights seems to be moving backwards. In an irony, considering the party which most strongly advocated civil rights, Republicans in their controlled states are making it harder to vote. They claim to be fighting voter fraud, regardless of the fact that virtually no people have voted illegally in recent years. In this country, just under half of Americans do not bother to vote at all. Many Americans don’t care enough to vote early or to vote in elections at all.
Our dear Supreme Court, showing flashes of the perception which gave us the Dred Scott decision, invalidated parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, helping states limit minority voting. I guess we will just have to rely on the Fifteenth Amendment, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,”
Secession is dead; though counties trying to secede from states seems to be the newest in thing in some western states – such as in Colorado and in California.
Federal law trumps state law, according to the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution found in Article VI, Paragraph 1. Missouri thinks this does not apply to federal gun laws.
Didn’t you think this ended in April 1865? Lee’s surrender at Appomattox ended a nasty and bloody war. For this alone, it is a good thing. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox also provided an opportunity for true sectional and racial unity, a chance to live up to the promises of the Declaration of Independence. This chance was blown, needing the “Second Reconstruction” of the 1960s to come close. Elizabeth R. Varon’s new book, Appomattox, points out that Robert E. Lee laid the groundwork, probably intentionally, for the century of little progress on giving true freedom to the freed slaves.
I had always wondered why Lee was so admired. He fought against his country – there no better way of putting things. Every indication is that he was not opposed to slavery, or was at least happy to live with the benefits. He can probably be described as a white racist. But, sadly, this did not make him unique. Lee’s prestige did, however, make him unique.
Lee ended the war being compared favorably to Ulysses S. Grant, forgetting that Lee lost a greater percentage of men under his command than Grant lost of men under his command. Lee was by most measures a good general, but with an uncertain understanding of the best national strategy for the South. Actively defeating the North was unlikely, but using the Confederacy’s huge territory, larger than the North east of the Mississippi, provided a real chance to hold out until the North grew tired of the war. Lee preferred to attack and to raid the North. He ended up with the strategic defeat at Antietam, and the clear tactical defeat at Gettysburg.
Lee surrendered his army when they were cut off from any direction they could move with any chance of escape. He was outmaneuvered by Grant. His farewell address told his men the army had been crushed by overwhelming numbers; apparently this came as a surprise. The number of 8,000 was accepted as the final combat strength of the Army of Northern Virginia. Of course, Lee asked Grant for 25,000 rations. The claims of overwhelming odds ignored the sizable number of Confederate soldiers killed or taken prisoner at the battles of Five Forks and Sailor’s Creek, when Grant’s forces sliced large chunks off the Confederate Army like one might slice a holiday ham. I wonder if anyone even knows how many Southerners deserted this lost cause in the last week.
Lee agreed to stop a bloody war that he could no longer win. He discouraged his men from feeling to fight as partisans. He encouraged the other main Confederate armies to surrender. He deserves credit for all of this, probably major credit. However, as Varon makes clear, Lee deserves blame for failing to put his prestige behind true racial and social reform in the South. Lee was by no means alone, but he might have done a lot more to earn his reputation as a symbol of national reconciliation.
A review essay on:
Elizabeth R. Varon
Appomattox: Victory, Defeat, and
Freedom at the End of the Civil War
New York:
Oxford University Press 2014
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