A Union General describes the mutual respect between victor and
vanquished a century-and-a-half ago in Appomattox, as two tired armies mark
the end of a long, bloody conflict, and the beginning of the America we live
in today.
One of the most dramatic meetings in American history
took place 150 years ago, on April 9, 1865. In the parlor of the McLean home
in Appomattox Court House, Va., two giants of American history, generals
Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, sat down to end a war that was long and
bloody for both sides, and begin a peace that would be uneasy and unsteady
for decades.
Such peace as it was came at a
terrible cost. In 2015, every life lost in the service of our nation pains
us all, and is one loss too many. So imagine, then, such pain expanded a
thousand-fold, or more, as was the case during the Civil War, whose casualty
count reached over 600,000, equaling the human toll extracted by all of the
other wars in our nation�s history.
With the assassination of President Lincoln, and the
difficulties of Reconstruction, it would be decades before North and South
truly felt reunited, each an important part of a greater whole. And, of
course, the American ideal of justice and equality for all would not bear
fruit for a century, or more, after the war.
Yet � the America we know today would likely not have
been possible without the bloody struggles of 1861-1865, and the price paid
by the soldiers from both sides.
In a very real way, the nation we know today began in
that parlor in Appomattox. A generous term negotiated between the two
generals would help the healing process: Gen. Lee�s soldiers would be
allowed to return home, taking with them their horses and mules, and soon
thereafter hitch them to dusty plows, turn over neglected soil, plant and
tend crops, and summon from the earth a renewal of life across a landscape
so ravaged by four years of war.
Another note of grace and healing occurred three days
later, during the official surrender ceremony on April 12. Major General
John B. Gordon was designated to surrender the Confederate army to the Union
designee, Brigadier General Joshua L. Chamberlain. In his memoir, The
Passing of the Armies, Gen. Chamberlain would later eloquently recount the
day.
Of Gen. Lee�s army, he describes how �Before us in proud
humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood: men whom neither toils and
sufferings, nor the fact of death, nor disaster, nor hopelessness could bend
from their resolve; standing before us now, thin, worn, and famished, but
erect, and with eyes looking level into ours, waking memories that bound us
together as no other bond; was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a
Union so tested and assured?�
Because of �the momentous meaning of this occasion ��
Gen. Chamberlain �resolved to mark it by some token of recognition, which
could be no other than a salute of arms.� So he writes that �Instructions
had been given; and when the head of each division column comes opposite our
group, our bugle sounds the signal and instantly our whole line from right
to left, regiment by regiment in succession, gives the soldier�s salutation,
from the �order arms� to the old �carry� � the marching salute.�
He describes how this salute impresses Confederate Gen.
Gordon, who �facing to his own command, gives word for his successive
brigades to pass us with the same position of the manual � honor answering
honor.�
And then he concludes: �On our part not a sound of
trumpet more, nor roll of drum; not a cheer, nor word nor whisper of
vain-glorying, nor motion of man standing again at the order, but an awed
stillness rather, and breath-holding, as if it were the passing of the
dead!�
In the fiery cauldron of America�s great Civil War, a
mighty nation was forged, unmatched in human history for its bravery and
generosity, openness and self-criticism, freedom and opportunity, and
ongoing desire to create every day �a more perfect Union,� and thereby
fulfill that vision the Founding Fathers outlined in the Preamble to the
Constitution.
The �awed stillness� described by Gen. Chamberlain
captures perfectly that moment between dream state and waking, bathed in
both wonder and worry, where time hangs suspended, with silence the only
sound, and the dark world grudgingly but gradually surrenders the horizon to
the light that announces the long night over, a new day begun.
