Appomattox Court House

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Appomattox, former courthouse (county seat) of the county of the same name in Virginia, twenty miles east southeast of Lynchburg, and scene of the surrender of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to the Union Army of the Potomac on 9 April 1865. General Robert E. Lee, retreating from Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia, on the night of 2–3 April, planned to withdraw into North Carolina via Danville. However, the Federal troops across his front at Jetersville forced him westward to Farmville, where he hoped to procure rations for a march to Lynchburg. En route to Farmville, Lee came under heavy attack. On 6 April, at Sayler's Creek, he lost about six thousand men. By the time Lee reached Appomattox Courthouse on 8 April, long marches without food had depleted the Confederate ranks to two small corps. That night, the reflections of Federal campfires against the clouds showed that the surviving Confederates were surrounded on three sides. To continue fighting, Lee reasoned, would only carry a hopeless struggle into country that had escaped the ravages of war.

On 9 April, at about 1:00 P.M., Lee rode into the village and, at the house of Major Wilmer McLean, formally arranged the surrender of all forces then under arms in Virginia. When on 12 April the troops marched into an open field to lay down their weapons and their flags, the Federal guard presented arms. At Appomattox 7,892 Confederate infantrymen surrendered with arms in their hands. The total number of troops paroled was about 28,000. Union general Ulysses S. Grant tried to get the Confederate commander to advise all the remaining Confederate troops to cease resistance, but Lee insisted that this was a decision for the civil authorities. Appomattox became a national historic site in 1954.

Bibliography

Davis, Burke. To Appomattox: Nine April Days, 1865. New York: Rinehart, 1959.

Hattaway, Herman, and Archer Jones. How the North Won. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983.

Wheeler, Richard. Witness to Appomattox. New York: Harper and Row, 1989.

—Douglas Southall Freeman/A. R.

A village in Virginia where General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant in April 1865, effectively ending the American Civil War.

This article is about the current courthouse for Appomattox County, Virginia. For the site of Robert E. Lee's surrender, see Appomattox Court House National Historical Park.

Current "new" Appomattox Court House that was built in 1892.

Appomattox Court House
new and old marker

The Appomattox Court House is a courthouse in Appomattox, Virginia built in 1892. It is located in the middle of the state about three miles (5 km) northwest of the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, once known as Clover Hill - home of the original Old Appomattox Court House. The "new" Appomattox Court House is near the Appomattox Station and where the regional county government is located.

Before the Civil War, the railroad bypassed Clover Hill, now known as the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park.^[1] As a result the population of Clover Hill, where the Old Appomattox Court House once stood, never grew much over 150 while Appomattox town grew to the thousands. When the courthouse at the village of Clover Hill burned for the second time in 1892, it was not rebuilt and a new courthouse was built in West Appomattox. That sealed the fate of the village of Clover Hill. The county seat was formally moved to the town of West Appomattox in 1894 and the word "West" was dropped in time making the name of the town just Appomattox, Virginia.^[2]

There is a marker at the site of the "new" Appomattox Court House explaining the difference between the "new" and "old" court houses.^[3]

This building, erected in 1892 when the county seat was moved to this location, should not be mistaken for the original, built in 1846 and destroyed by fire in 1892. Three miles northeast is old Appomattox Court House and the McLean House where Lee surrendered to Grant on April 9, 1865, thus ending the War Between the States. The village of Old Appomattox Court House is now preserved as a national shrine by the Federal Government.

Footnotes

1. ^ "Appomattox town history". http://www.appomattoxhistory.org/. Retrieved 2009-01-21. 
2. ^ "Clover Hill village". http://www.appomattoxhistory.org/clover-hill.htm. Retrieved 2009-01-21. 
3. ^ "Viewing Appomattox Court House, New and Old building and marker". http://www.markeroni.com/catalog/display.php?code=VA_K_158. Retrieved 2009-01-21. 

Sources

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

External links

• Official County website
• Official Tourism website for Town and County of Appomattox

• Appomattox Court House is at coordinates 37°21′32″N 78°49′35″W / 37.358973°N 78.826438°W / 37.358973; -78.826438 (Appomattox Court House)Coordinates: 37°21′32″N 78°49′35″W / 37.358973°N 78.826438°W / 37.358973; -78.826438 (Appomattox Court House)

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