Appomattox Victory, defeat, and freedom at the end of the Civil War

Varon (Virginia) reexamines the meaning of the surrender at Appomattox and explores how the conflict over that meaning shaped Reconstruction and beyond. She convincingly shows that Grant believed his generous terms of surrender demonstrated the moral superiority of the North's cause and the need for the nation to look forward. Varon contrasts these beliefs with those of Lee, who held that the still morally superior South was merely overwhelmed by the North's resources. These contrasting views of the surrender itself drove each man throughout the rest of his life, with Grant becoming solidly allied with Radical Republicans, and Lee's testimony before Congress still reflecting the old paternalistic narrative of a defiant slave owner. Varon is effective in dispelling the various myths that have sprung up over the surrender itself, including the fabled meeting under an apple tree, which never happened. Using a wealth of primary and secondary sources, the work is excellent in never treating either North or South as monolithic. The author thoroughly discusses the roles of African Americans in both sections, and gives the political opponents in both regions their say. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above. K. L. Gorman Minnesota State University--Mankato

Varon (history, Temple Univ.; Southern Lady, Yankee Spy: The True Story of Elizabeth Van Lew, a Union Agent in the Heart of the Confederacy) argues that our conflicting interpretations of the meaning of General Lee's April 1865 surrender to General Grant at Appomattox Court House, VA, help explain our subsequent varying interpretations of Reconstruction and post-Civil War America. The interpretations of Appomattox began even before the surrender itself. In their very negotiations, Lee and Grant attempted to define the meaning of the surrender. Initial responses focused on Grant's generous terms offered to the defeated rebels. To Lee, the very fact that Grant was generous showed that the South had been morally right but was defeated by overwhelming manpower. For Grant, he was magnanimous because the North was morally right and could afford to be generous in victory to "convert" Southern opinion to Northern sensibilities. To Northerners, it was the superior generalship of Grant, the morality of their cause, and effective soldiering that brought victory. For Southerners and copperheads, it was inferior numbers alone that lost the war. These variances, says Varon, explain Southern resistance to radical Reconstruction, especially as it pertained to civil rights for former slaves. Varon shows that the Northern interpretation of the surrender is in fact better supported by the historical record. VERDICT This is a careful examination that anyone interested in exploring the meanings of the war and Reconstruction will find valuable.-MF (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

What exactly was the meaning of the surrender at Appomattox? Robert E. Lee's surrender of his starving army to Ulysses S. Grant effectively brought the Civil War to an end; remaining military resistance collapsed shortly thereafter. But once the killing ceased and the Confederate troops had returned home under magnanimous surrender terms, what had truly been resolved? Slavery and secession were ended by force of arms; the South accepted that, however grudgingly. Yet many social and political questions remained to be settled by leaders from both sides of the conflict. Predominating among these leaders were the border-state Democrat Andrew Johnson, who had succeeded the murdered Lincoln, and Lee and Grant themselves. Varon (History/Univ. of Virginia; Disunion!: The Coming of the American Civil War, 17891859, 2008, etc.) considers how the months following the surrender came to be viewed by each side as a golden opportunity for conciliation squandered by the other, partly as a result of radically different interpretations of the meaning of the North's military victory and the terms under which the South had laid down its arms. Drawing on sources ranging from newspaper editorials and congressional testimony to the poetry of Herman Melville, the author explores the evolving disagreements between Unionists and the former Confederates about moral culpability for the war, the restoration of the occupied states to the union, and especially about the rights to be accorded the freed slaves. Johnson's approach to reconstruction seemed only to substitute serfdom for slavery and otherwise left the South largely unchanged; this enraged the radical Republicans, who saw this result as a betrayal of the Union dead. Grant observed and vacillated but finally supported the radicals. Lee emerges as less the conciliating figure of modern legend and more a sectional leader who felt betrayed by what he saw as federal interference in Southern affairs beyond anything agreed to at Appomattox. A careful, scholarly consideration of how the ambiguities surrounding the defeat of the South resolved into the bitter eras of Reconstruction and Jim Crow.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.