Sign-In
Cart
Appomattox: Victory, Defeat, and Freedom at the End of the Civil War
Hardcover
Armed ForcesCivil War Period (1850-1877)
Publisher Price: $33.99
Please select the version of book you would like to purchase.
ISBN10: 0199751714
ISBN13: 9780199751716
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Oct 4 2013
Pages: 320
Weight: 1.30
Height: 1.06 Width: 6.44 Depth: 9.51
Language: English
ISBN13: 9780199751716
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Oct 4 2013
Pages: 320
Weight: 1.30
Height: 1.06 Width: 6.44 Depth: 9.51
Language: English
Winner, Library of Virginia Literary Award for Nonfiction
Winner, Eugene Feit Award in Civil War Studies, New York Military Affairs Symposium
Winner of the Dan and Marilyn Laney Prize of the Austin Civil War Round Table
Finalist, Jefferson Davis Award of the Museum of the Confederacy
Best Books of 2014, Civil War Monitor
Winner, Eugene Feit Award in Civil War Studies, New York Military Affairs Symposium
Winner of the Dan and Marilyn Laney Prize of the Austin Civil War Round Table
Finalist, Jefferson Davis Award of the Museum of the Confederacy
Best Books of 2014, Civil War Monitor
6 Civil War Books to Read Now, Diane Rehm Show, NPR
Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House evokes a highly gratifying image in the popular mind -- it was, many believe, a moment that transcended politics, a moment of healing, a moment of patriotism untainted by ideology. But as Elizabeth Varon reveals in this vividly narrated history, this rosy image conceals a seething debate over precisely what the surrender meant and what kind of nation would emerge from war. The combatants in that debate included the iconic Lee and Grant, but they also included a cast of characters previously overlooked, who brought their own understanding of the war's causes, consequences, and meaning. In Appomattox, Varon deftly captures the events swirling around that well remembered-but not well understood-moment when the Civil War ended. She expertly depicts the final battles in Virginia, when Grant's troops surrounded Lee's half-starved army, the meeting of the generals at the McLean House, and the shocked reaction as news of the surrender spread like an electric charge throughout the nation. But as Varon shows, the ink had hardly dried before both sides launched a bitter debate over the meaning of the war and the nation's future. For Grant, and for most in the North, the Union victory was one of right over wrong, a vindication of free society; for many African Americans, the surrender marked the dawn of freedom itself. Lee, in contrast, believed that the Union victory was one of might over right: the vast impersonal Northern war machine had worn down a valorous and unbowed South. Lee was committed to peace, but committed, too, to the restoration of the South's political power within the Union and the perpetuation of white supremacy. These two competing visions of the war's end paved the way not only for Southern resistance to reconstruction but also our ongoing debates on the Civil War, 150 years later. Did America's best days lie in the past or in the future? For Lee, it was the past, the era of the founding generation. For Grant, it was the future, represented by Northern moral and material progress. They held, in the end, two opposite views of the direction of the country-and of the meaning of the war that had changed that country forever.
Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House evokes a highly gratifying image in the popular mind -- it was, many believe, a moment that transcended politics, a moment of healing, a moment of patriotism untainted by ideology. But as Elizabeth Varon reveals in this vividly narrated history, this rosy image conceals a seething debate over precisely what the surrender meant and what kind of nation would emerge from war. The combatants in that debate included the iconic Lee and Grant, but they also included a cast of characters previously overlooked, who brought their own understanding of the war's causes, consequences, and meaning. In Appomattox, Varon deftly captures the events swirling around that well remembered-but not well understood-moment when the Civil War ended. She expertly depicts the final battles in Virginia, when Grant's troops surrounded Lee's half-starved army, the meeting of the generals at the McLean House, and the shocked reaction as news of the surrender spread like an electric charge throughout the nation. But as Varon shows, the ink had hardly dried before both sides launched a bitter debate over the meaning of the war and the nation's future. For Grant, and for most in the North, the Union victory was one of right over wrong, a vindication of free society; for many African Americans, the surrender marked the dawn of freedom itself. Lee, in contrast, believed that the Union victory was one of might over right: the vast impersonal Northern war machine had worn down a valorous and unbowed South. Lee was committed to peace, but committed, too, to the restoration of the South's political power within the Union and the perpetuation of white supremacy. These two competing visions of the war's end paved the way not only for Southern resistance to reconstruction but also our ongoing debates on the Civil War, 150 years later. Did America's best days lie in the past or in the future? For Lee, it was the past, the era of the founding generation. For Grant, it was the future, represented by Northern moral and material progress. They held, in the end, two opposite views of the direction of the country-and of the meaning of the war that had changed that country forever.
Also in
Civil War Period (1850-1877)
The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War
Larson, Erik
Paperback
$19.80
The Ballad of the Fugitive William Parker: A True Tale of Love, Murder, Treason, and Ordinary Folks Who Saved America
Aptowicz, Cristin O'Keefe
Hardcover
$29.45
The Confederacy Myth: How an Insurrection of Slaveholders Tried to Destroy the United States
Williams, Connor
Hardcover
$27.00
America's Founding Son: John Quincy Adams, from President to Political Maverick
Crawford, Bob
Hardcover
$26.60
Centennial: The Great Fair of 1876 and the Invention of America's Future
Bordewich, Fergus M.
Hardcover
From $19.99
Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War
Fields-Black, Edda L.
Hardcover
$39.89
Getting to Reparations: How Building a Different America Requires a Reckoning with Our Past
Brown, Dorothy A.
Hardcover
$27.00
Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America
Ellsworth, Scott
Hardcover
$30.40
The Man Behind the Cane: Preston Brooks, Political Violence, and the Road to the Civil War
Quigley, Paul
Hardcover
$34.99
Lincoln on Leadership for Today: Abraham Lincoln's Approach to Twenty-First-Century Issues
Phillips, Donald T.
Paperback
$18.04
If I Can Get Home This Fall: A Story of Love, Loss, and a Cause in the Civil War
Alexander, Tyler
Hardcover
$35.10
Lincoln's Lady Spymaster: The Untold Story of the Abolitionist Southern Belle Who Helped Win the Civil War
Willis, Gerri
Hardcover
$26.09
Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869
Ambrose, Stephen E.
Paperback
From $10.99
The Road Was Full of Thorns: Running Toward Freedom in the American Civil War
Zoellner, Tom
Hardcover
$33.24
Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America
Nelson, Megan Kate
Hardcover
$9.99
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
Baptist, Edward E.
Paperback
$23.74
The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution
Foner, Eric
Paperback
$17.05
Behind the Scenes: Or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House
Keckley, Elizabeth
Paperback
$12.50
The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West
Nelson, Megan Kate
Paperback
$18.99
The Memoirs of General William Tecumseh Sherman: The Complete Annotated Edition
Sherman, William T.
Hardcover
$37.95
Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle
Johnson, Paul
Paperback
$18.99
Maine's Place in History: Joshua Chamberlain's 1876 Address at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition
Chamberlain, Joshua
Hardcover
$29.95
The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896
White, Richard
Paperback
$28.49
The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920
Sinha, Manisha
Paperback
$17.99
A Promise Delivered: Ten American Heroes and the Battle to Rename Our Nation's Military Bases
Williams, Connor
Seidule, Ty
Hardcover
$26.10
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (National Book Award Finalist)
Faust, Drew Gilpin
Paperback
$18.05
Everything You Were Taught about the Civil War Is Wrong, Ask a Southerner!
Seabrook, Lochlainn
Paperback
$24.99
Abolitionists of the Northeast: Black Leaders in the Antislavery Movement
MacDonald, Gail Braccidiferro
Paperback
$24.95
The Regular Army Before the Civil War 1845 - 1860
Clayton R. Newell
Center of Military History United States
Paperback
$21.54
Lincoln's Road to War: A Day-by-Day Account of the First 60 Days of Abraham Lincoln's Presidency
Johnson, David Alan
Hardcover
$29.95
We Gather Together: The True Story of Thanksgiving and the Woman Who Fought to Make It an American Holiday
Kiernan, Denise
Paperback
$24.00
Seeking Freedom in Indian Country: Slavery, Sovereignty, and Resistance Within the Five Tribes, 1790-1861
Oertel, Kristen Tegtmeier
Hardcover
$42.70
A Legacy in Brick and Stone: American Coast Defense Forts of the Third System, 1816-1867
Weaver, John R.
Hardcover
$61.70
Civil War Camps and Soldier Health: Sanitation and Military Effectiveness in the Union Army
Hess, Earl J.
Paperback
$55.93
Such Troops as These: The Genius and Leadership of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson
Alexander, Bevin
Paperback
$27.00
The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation
Wineapple, Brenda
Paperback
$29.00
To Rescue the Republic: Ulysses S. Grant, the Fragile Union, and the Crisis of 1876
Baier, Bret
Whitney, Catherine
Paperback
$20.89
Freedom Was in Sight: A Graphic History of Reconstruction in the Washington, D.C., Region
Masur, Kate
Paperback
$22.80
A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin: Presenting the Original Facts and Documents Upon Which the Story Is Founded
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Paperback
From $10.99
The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women's Rights
Wickenden, Dorothy
Paperback
$19.95
Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow
Gates, Henry Louis
Paperback
From $10.99
Fear No Pharaoh: American Jews, the Civil War, and the Fight to End Slavery
Kreitner, Richard
Hardcover
$30.40
Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever
Dugard, Martin
O'Reilly, Bill
Paperback
$19.00
Gettysburg Surgeons: Facing a Common Enemy in the Civil War's Deadliest Battle
Franco, Barbara
Hardcover
$33.20
Reminiscences of My Life in Camp: An African American Woman's Civil War Memoir
Taylor, Susie King
Paperback
$33.53
Defending Dixie's Land: What Every American Should Know About The South and The Civil War
Bishop, Isaac C.
Hardcover
$37.95
Scars on the Land: An Environmental History of Slavery in the American South
Silkenat, David
Hardcover
$57.99
Be Free or Die: The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls' Escape from Slavery to Union Hero
Lineberry, Cate
Paperback
$19.00
Lincoln's Last Trial: The Murder Case That Propelled Him to the Presidency
Fisher, David
Abrams, Dan
Paperback
$17.99
Hell's Half-Acre: The Untold Story of the Benders, a Serial Killer Family on the American Frontier
Jonusas, Susan
Paperback
$17.10
To Purge This Land with Blood: A Biography of John Brown [Updated Edition]
Oates, Stephen B.
Hardcover
$46.19
Abolitionists of the Northeast: Black Leaders in the Antislavery Movement
MacDonald, Gail Braccidiferro
Hardcover
$39.95
Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly: The Remarkable Story of the Friendship Between a First Lady and a Former Slave
Fleischner, Jennifer
Paperback
$24.00
The President and the Freedom Fighter: Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Their Battle to Save America's Soul
Kilmeade, Brian
Paperback
$17.10
Civil War Photo Forensics: Investigating Battlefield Photographs Through a Critical Lens
Hippensteel, Scott
Hardcover
$37.95
Ulysses's Odyssey: Ulysses S. Grant's World Tour at the Dawn of American Empire
Picone, Louis L.
Hardcover
$33.20
How Lincoln Won: The 1860 Presidential Election and the Origins of the Civil War
Schwartz, Thomas
DeWitt, Darin
Hardcover
$63.00
Retreat from Victory: The Battle of Malvern Hill and the End of the Seven Days, July 1, 1862
O'Reilly, Francis Augustín
Hardcover
$37.95
The Surgeon's Battle: How Medicine Won the Vicksburg Campaign and Changed the Civil War
Privette, Lindsay Rae Smith
Paperback
$41.93
Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman's March and the Story of America's Largest Emancipation
Parten, Bennett
Paperback
$18.05
Sultana: Surviving the Civil War, Prison, and the Worst Maritime Disaster in American History
Huffman, Alan
Paperback
$17.99
Out of This Strife Will Come Freedom: Free People of Color and the Fight for Equal Rights in the Civil War Era
Milteer, Warren Eugene, Jr.
Paperback
$39.13
No Common Ground, Second Edition: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice
Cox, Karen L.
Paperback
$17.10
Death or Victory: The Louisiana Native Guards and the Black Military's Significance in the Civil War
Cade, A. J.
Hardcover
$47.45
America's Deadliest Election: The Cautionary Tale of the Most Violent Election in American History
Bash, Dana
Paperback
$18.04
Managing the Union Army: Scott, McClellan, Halleck, and Grant as General-In-Chief
Hess, Earl J.
Hardcover
$56.95
Fear No Pharaoh: American Jews, the Civil War, and the Fight to End Slavery
Kreitner, Richard
Paperback
$19.95
Emancipation War: The Fall of Slavery and the Coming of the Thirteenth Amendment
Root, Damon
Hardcover
$28.45
The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America's Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War
Delbanco, Andrew
Paperback
From $10.99