re: Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Ulysses S. Grant on this day 158 years ago...

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You do celebrate that,……….. right Damone?

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He does.

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Still don't understand what he was thinking charging up Kennesaw.

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He was probably frustrated with how Joseph E. Johnston was behaving during the campaign. Sherman's objective wasn't so much taking Atlanta as it was destroying Johnston's army in the process. Since he had begun his campaign from Chattanooga, Sherman had been trying to catch Johnston in the open so he could destroy him, but Johnston kept maneuvering away from him at the last moment, unwilling to give battle. When Johnston finally made a stand at Kennesaw, Sherman likely got carried away because it had taken so long to actually have an opportunity to fight a proper battle.

Saddest day in American history.

Deo Vindice

Never trust republicans amirite?

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They were traitors and they knew they were.

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The Declaration of Independence says otherwise.

You are correct on all counts. There was no happier man in the United States than Sherman when Johnston was relieved in favor of Hood. In the course of just a few months, Hood destroyed his own army by needlessly going on the offensive in battles such as Peachtree Creek, Atlanta, Ezra Church, Franklin, and Nashville.

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Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Ulysses S. Grant on this day 158 years ago...

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Huge victory for the Republicans.

I happended to be in the area for a business trip several yrs ago and stopped by the park. I stood inside about 10 ft away from where Grant and Lee sat in the pic above. Kinda chilling if you think about while you are there.

Interesting side story... the guy who owned the house in the pic originally owned a house at the site of Bull Run I believe and he packed his wife and kids up and moved to Appomattox Court House to get away from the war...

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A great day. Traitorous swine got their comeuppance.

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Oh shite!!! You owned that guy who died 200 years ago. I don't think he'll be talking any more shite to you after that own...

dork

On the morning of April 9, 1865, Chamberlain learned of the desire by General Robert E. Lee to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia when a Confederate staff officer approached him under a flag of truce. "Sir," he reported to Chamberlain, "I am from General Gordon. General Lee desires a cessation of hostilities until he can hear from General Grant as to the proposed surrender."[11] The next day, Chamberlain was summoned to Union headquarters where Maj. Gen. Charles Griffin informed him that he had been selected to preside over the parade of the Confederate infantry as part of their formal surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 12.[12]

Chamberlain was thus responsible for one of the most poignant scenes of the American Civil War. As the Confederate soldiers marched down the road to surrender their arms and colors, Chamberlain, on his own initiative, ordered his men to come to attention and "carry arms" as a show of respect. In memoirs written forty years after the event, Chamberlain described what happened next:

Gordon, at the head of the marching column, outdoes us in courtesy. He was riding with downcast eyes and more than pensive look; but at this clatter of arms he raises his eyes and instantly catching the significance, wheels his horse with that superb grace of which he is master, drops the point of his sword to his stirrup, gives a command, at which the great Confederate ensign following him is dipped and his decimated brigades, as they reach our right, respond to the 'carry.' All the while on our part not a sound of trumpet or drum, not a cheer, nor a word nor motion of man, but awful stillness as if it were the passing of the dead.