Legacies of Appomattox: Lee’s Surrender in History and Memory

Dispelling the myth that the Appomattox surrender was a “gentleman’s agreement” between Gen. Robert E. Lee and Gen. Ulysses S. Grant that reunited the South and North, Elizabeth Varon argues that the surrender terms were controversial from the start and became the touchstone for the conflicts during Reconstruction.
ELIZABETH R. VARON is Langbourne M. Williams Professor of American History at the University of Virginia. Her most recent book is Appomattox: Victory, Defeat and Freedom at the End of the Civil War (2013). Appomattox won the 2014 Library of Virginia Literary Award for Nonfiction, and the 2014 Dan and Marilyn Laney Prize for Civil War History (Austin Civil War Roundtable); was finalist for the 2014 Jefferson Davis Award (Museum of the Confederacy); and was named one of Civil War Monitor’s Best Books of 2014.
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Excellent. A thought-provoking and cogent framing for a reconsideration of the meaning and consequences of Appomattox. I left it with a different understanding of the figures involved - particularly of Lee.