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160 Years Ago Today: Lee Surrenders at Appomattox [1]
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Date: 2025-04-09
A brief note of remembrance for a significant day in United States history — and its relevance to us today.
On April 9, 1865, one hundred and sixty years ago, a quiet and otherwise obscure village in Virginia was immortalized as the place where the most significant remaining armed force of the Confederate States of America (CSA), the Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by CSA General-In-Chief Robert E. Lee laid down its arms and surrendered to the main force of the United States, the Union Army of the Potomac, led by Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant. While a small number of CSA forces remained at large, the surrender at Appomattox was recognized by all at the time as the real end of the war. The drama as not ended, however, including the assassination of US President Abraham Lincoln on April 15, and the eventual capture of fugitive CSA President Jefferson Davis on May 10.
Of the 3.5 million men, on both sides, who fought the war, 1.5 million were casualties, including 620,000 dead — a greater US death toll than World Wars 1 and 2 combined. This was a staggering number considering the US population in 1860 was only 31.4 million. Soldier mortality rates were very high due to the relatively primitive state of medical and scientific knowledge. It is estimated that 70-80 percent of war dead perished due to diseases, or from infected wounds that today would be easily cured, with 10-20 percent of deaths in battle itself.
The accounted toll of Union war dead was 360,222. Of the more than 325,000 Union soldiers buried in National Cemeteries, almost 149,000 are in graves marked “Unknown.” The National Park Service estimates that between 1863 and 1865, approximately 180,000 African American soldiers served in the Union Army, with around 36,000 to 40,000 of them dying in service, suffering a mortality rate of around 20-25%, which was higher than that of white soldiers. Americans of all backgrounds were found in the ranks of these Union armies — out west, Union regiments were formed of Hispanic Americans and Native Americans, while Irish, German and other immigrants were common in the east.
In terms of support, the surviving Union veterans returned to a very different world than US veterans today. The first government entities to attend to their needs were created during the war, via the 1862 General Pension Act and the 1865 National Asylum for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. But services we are familiar with today were not around back then — the Veterans Administration was not created until 1930, and the GI Bill wasn’t passed until 1944. For the returning Civil War veterans, there was no common recognition of the “unseen” impact of war, such as post trauma distress.
Why pay attention to the date of the Appomattox Surrender?
If you have grandparents who are in their 80’s, and they had similarly long-lived grandparents, your great grandparents were likely children old enough to have lived in the US during the Civil War. To have seen and felt hundreds and hundreds of thousands of young men (it was almost all men in the military back then) march through their village squares to a war from which many would not return.
In the Age of Trump, it is easy to think we live in the worst of times. Yet, especially in such times, it is important to remember that our feet walk on the same hallowed ground under which are buried so many ancestors who fought to bring these United States into existence. To maintain it during times of existential crisis. And to strive to improve upon the flawed vision of its Founding Fathers so as to build a nation for all.
The author Barbara Tuchman titled one of her historical books “A Distant Mirror.” Although the book dealt with the crisis of 14th century Western Europe, the telling of the stories was meant to resonate with the modern mind. History is alive when that happens. We begin to see not just words on a page or faded figures on a lithograph. But people like us, who were born lived, loved, fought, made peace, and died.
Tomorrow the anniversary of Appomattox will have passed. But mark it now, as a reminder that what we now hold was dearly bought with blood. And well worthy of our continued efforts to preserve.
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