Our first speaker this morning comes to us from the macarthur memorial in a norfolk, virginia. When i was there visiting this spring. It was my first opportunity to get it down and visit. He said the only thing that is equitable for the type of thing he is overseeing would be a president ial library. That stunned me a little bit. That is a significant thing. If you think about what Douglas Macarthur did during world war ii, afterwards in korea, he really shaped the face of the pacific in a way that no one else has. That repository of documents and memorabilia and artifacts is really a significant component of the 20thcentury. Chris kolakowski is the caretaker of that. It was really quite a remarkable shift for me, as i understood what chris is up to down there. But thats his day job. By night, he is still in love with the american civil war. He got started in fredericksburg in spotsylvania. He has since gone on to perryville, where he was in charge of the battlefield out there. He has gone on to the George Patton museum, that got him into world war ii, which led him at norfolk at the macarthur memorial. But he still goes to bed at night and dreams about the civil war. [laughter] so it is my great delight to introduce to you my great polish brethern, chris kolakowski. [applause] mr. Kolakowski good morning everybody. I have been introduced in many ways over many years. Consistently the most interesting, not the most embarrassing, but some of the more chuckleinducing introductions come from my polish brother here. I encourage you all to come down to norfork and visit the macarthur memorial. Its a fantastic place and i am proud to be leader of the team that preserves the life and times of macarthur memorial. If that gig doesnt work with you, i can probably find you a spot on the staff. I think you are doing ok up in new york. [laughter] when you go first in the day, its a bit of a responsibility. I set the pace for everybody else. It also presents a challenge for me. Because im going first, you are still waking up. It means hopefully you wont notice any hesitations or uhhs or anything like that. But my history and colleagues are hoping i dont set too rigorous of a pace as well. We are going to have a far ranging discussion and i will take questions at the end. It will set the stage for the rest of the topics of the day. We talk about the civil war. The civil war ended in 1855. It ended at appomattox. The last Confederate Forces hundred 50 years ago today have yet to surrender. The shenandoah will hold down the last like in 1865. What i want to do, the truism is that the war ended at appomattox, april 9, 1865 when robert e lee surrendered to u. S. Grant. Thats a good starting point. What i want to do is not focus on appomattox so much, although we will talk about it. But i want to pull the lens back and look at appomattox in context. The end of the war, any war, not just the civil war, but we are passing several anniversaries of end of complex. The end of the war of 1812, the end of american involvement in vietnam with the fall of saigon, the end of the Second World War, both in may of this year and in august, coming up in just a few weeks. The end of the war, any war, is the beginning of the peace. How that ending goes can reverberate for a long time. Where want to do for the next 45 minutes is unpack that statement. I want to explore some of these. The way the war ended but the reverberations as well of to the present day. Lets start not with appomattox. Lets start with the other great ending of april, 1865, the first 10 days or so. Im referring to the fall of richmond. Robert e lees army, 65,000 men, holding the siege lines. They face 100,000 federal forces. The army of the potomac, and an army level headquarters of the shenandoah under philip sheridan. Richmond, for four years, has had a target on its back. It has been a primary, or a secondary, objective of u. S. Forces in the Eastern Theater since the wars beginning in 1861. It has had more military resources devoted to its capture than any objective the American Forces have ever tried to capture up to this point in history of the country. The largest army the u. S. Has ever fielded, the army of the potomac, has its objective at richmond. The people of richmond know they have been living with a target on the back. Richmond also is a symbol. I want to talk about that more as we get going. Richmond is a symbol of the confederacy, also one of the most important industrial cities in the confederacy. As april 1865 begins, the battle of five forks outside of petersburg, virginia. 50 miles from the Confederate White House. That breaks the siege lines. The next day, as grant launches a centrifical offensive, he cuts off rail lines except one small tendon that runs southeast of the city. He has basically cut off the confederacy richmond from the rest of the confederacy. Lee realizes he cant hold for very much longer. Its sunday, april 2, 1865, and he realizes he has to get the president , jeff davis, out of church and tell them he has to go. This decision by general lee sets off a chain of events over the next 36 hours that affects the city to this day. This sets a breakpoint in the history of richmond. Richmond is a symbol. Let me give you a couple of comparison cases over the last 150 years to give you context about the fall of richmond. What it means to the people there, to the story, their stories and the overall war and overall perspective. Madrid 1939, when franco takes it. Paris, 1940, when germans destroyed the french the republic. Warsaw, 1939. Manila, 1941. Saigon, 1975. The best analogy i can give you for what is happening, whats going to happen in richmond, is a shipwreck. The city, its population, and its garrison will go through every single Human Emotion possible in the next 36 hours. April 3, 1865. It is the end of an era. These cities are all symbols. Cities change hands all throughout warfare. What makes these different . Its the symbolism. It is also the fact that they are watersheds. The fall of singapore ended the British Empire in the far east. Manila has never been the same since the Second World War when the japanese took her in 1941 and the destruction of 1945. For the impact on paris, just watch casablanca for the impact on paris. The global reverberations of that offense, the helicopters going off the embassy roof, that puts a very sharp point. Richmond, for the confederates, and for the union, is the same thing. Lets talk about what happens to the city of richmond when jeff davis is pulled out of church and told you have six hours. The confederate government is going to leave by train. I want to look at this from a number of perspectives. The first one is that from now on, everything has a time limit. Once that runs out, if you are in richmond, there is a very uncertain future coming your way. If you are jeff davis, part of the executive cabinet, what do you pack from the Confederate White House . Where do you go . What becomes the new city of government for the confederacy . All these decisions have to be made quickly. Do you pack up the family . For jeff davis, the answer is yes. But if you are one of his staffers, what do you do . How do you take care of this . General lee faces this problem also because his wife and daughters live in the city of richmond. Does he take them with him . Does he leave them to the mercies of the union army . Its a very personal, very wrenching decision that has to be made. If he leaves them to the union army, how are they going to treat the family of robert e. Lee . Is a very uncertain sort of thing going forward. That is just some of the leaders. Imagine yourself just being an average everyday richmond to citizen on april 2, as you know that the union army things are not going well for your army and the union army is at the gates. You know that there are black troops in the siege and lines. What will they be like . What about these suddenly freed slaves as soon as the union army comes in . What are they going to do . Are there going to be riots . What do you do with your silver . What do you do with your valuables . Do you bury them in the garden . Do you leave them and trust that nobody is going to mess with them . What we do with the family shotgun . Are you going to hide it, are you going to greet the enemy . Are you even going to stay . Are you going to go . If you choose to go, what are you going to take, and how are you going to get out of here . Are you going to go by wagon if you have one . By horse . Are you going to try and crowd the train station and try and get a train out . The morning of april 3 i would recommend reading a memoir about going to the railyards on the manchester side of the river and finding thousands of people waiting for trains that will never come. Because they dont know anywhere else to go. Thats the only way they can possibly leave the city of richmond. If youve seen the movie dr. Zhivago, there are scenes about leaving moscow during the russian revolution. That is a good visual to put to this scene. Some people, to be honest, the best thing to do is to head to the local watering hole and start drinking. [laughter] that is true of every single case that i have seen. A hotel before the fall of singapore, british Staff Officers with Nothing Better to do were drinking whiskey sodas. Theres always a point in these instances where the bartenders start taking the bottles and pouring them out, because they dont want the occupiers to get their hands on it and get out of control. There are accounts from richmond and other places of the gutters and stairways literally running with alcohol. There is so much being emptied out. Lets not forget all of this is being cadenced by the rhythm of explosions. Yes, from the battlefront, which is drawing very close, but also from within the cities explosions and fire. Everything which cant be moved, and is militarily valuable, the Confederate Army is blowing up. Railyards, depots. That sets a finality. When you blow bridges, installations, that means you are not coming back. It puts a visual punctuation mark on what has happened. This is an end of an era. What was is no longer. And will not be again. That knowledge puts a real sharp cadence and edge to these decisions. It puts an urgency to these decisions that the government has to make in these hours before the fall of richmond. They go through every single Human Emotion. Including, by the way, at least one case of love. As Walter Taylor asks in the middle of it, world is coming to an end, can i go get married . Sure, go get married. This is Something Else that we know that they didnt know. They didnt know that the war in virginia was going to end in a week in appomattox. As far as everyone was concerned, they were going to leave richmond. Virginia would get overrun by the union army, and they would join joe johnston and fight for however longer further they want. No one knew they were going to be back in just over a week to 10 days. Keep that in mind as you think through the thought process. One of the punctuation points, and i found this in interesting congruence with manila. Everybody in manila saw when the navy blew up the navy yard just across the bay. Everybody saw that smoke and those explosions. Everybody knew when the navy was pulling out that it was over. Everybody in richmond, the Early Morning hours of april 3, remembers hearing the three crumps on the james river. The three ironclads, the most powerful fleet the Confederate Army had. Everybody remembers that in richmond. It had the same effect. When the navy that has kept us safe for four years is pulling out, its over. Suddenly a very unknown future. This is a break, a psychological wrench for the city of richmond that defines it to this day. You see it in some of the different arguments from time to time about the monuments in the city, the different basement of the monuments. When arthur ash was placed on monument avenue. When they placed the Lincoln Statue commemorating lincolns visit. Where was that going to go . You saw that psychological wrench of the after effects coming back. Here when the richmond battlefield did the 150th, about the battles of civil wars, do you know one of the most attended programs were that they did . It wasnt anything out of the battlefield. It was the april 2 and april 3 stuff related to the fall of the city of richmond. If you have seen some of the photographs, its amazing the number of people there. Im not sure how many richmonders can tell you exactly why they felt the connection to be there. But the people down there understand that this is an important moment in their history. They may not be able to articulate in words, but that picture tells me that they feel in their bones the psychological breakpoint in their citys history. It continues to define their city to this day. One thought about the psychological impact on the fall of richmond. And anonymous war clerk said, i didnt think we lost the war until i saw my government on wheels. He said that at the depot watching jeff davis train leave on april 2, 1865. A u. S. Army clerk echoed that watching the fall of manila. He said it was like leaving an old friend. A similar sentiment people felt as they left the city of richmond in 1865. That is an ending point that continues to reverberate to this day. But, of course, it is not the end of the war. Lees army flees west trying to get to north carolina. Grants sets off on what i would argue was the best campaign the potomac army ever wages. They catch part of them april 6 at sailors creek, catching quite a few of them. Morning of april 9, they surround the army of Northern Virginia around appomattox courthouse. Lee tries to break out and counterattack to open the way to north carolina. As they are making headway against union cavalry, Union Infantry from the potomac shows up, among them africanamerican troops. As one general said, the battlefield looks like a checkerboard. And lee realizes the jig is up. He said, i cannot advance further. Unless supported by longstreets corp. Longstreet is holding up the entire army of the potomac. Lee realizes that morning of april, 1855, that the jig is up. He told his staff, there is nothing for it than to go see general grant, and i would rather die 1000 deaths. We will come back to that line further. Its important to note, and it always thought this was interesting i will ask the question to you why and let you come up with your own decision. Robert e. Lee, leaving richmond, saved one pristine uniform and a presentation at sword. For something. [laughter] hes going to put it on to go meet general grant. The question i would pose to you, as far as im willing to get into someones head, did he know when he left richmond at petersburg, did he know what was going to happen . I leave that question rhetorically for you to decide. Grant, for his part, has been on campaign. He is muddy, riding around sheridans forces opposite gordon. Gets a message from lee, find a place in appomattox. I will meet you there. Send it on this road, i will be there. After some searching, being palm sunday, april 9, the courthouse is locked. After some searching the end up in the parlour of one wilmer mclean. His house outside of the nasa july agency one was general beauregards headquarters. He says the war started in my front yard and ended in my parlor. lee goes in. Grant, when he shows up in the early afternoon, has brought a retinue of Staff Officers, generals along to witness. They step in. Its a very sharp contrast. A lot of people have made much of the contrast between lee dressed sharply, and grant coming in muddy with only some of his stars on his shoulders. The contrast of those two personalities and what that symbolizes. I think there is something to that. I want to talk about something i think is important. Is not so much how they look but what they bring into the room with them. Both men bring a lot of things into the room with them. I want to spend a little bit of time developing that thought even more. Both men are exemplars for what they stand for. The end of the war is the beginning of the peace. The actions of the leaders at the end of the war sets the tone for the beginning of the peace. Grant understood that he sat at the intersection of politics, economics, and the military by virtue of his position as commander in chief. Robert e. Lee also understood they were the personification of the confederacy, more so than jefferson davis. As the army of Northern Virginia would go, so with the confederacy. The analogy had been drawn, contemporarily as it has today, between lee and the army of the confederacy between washington and the Continental Army to the colonies during our war for independence. That is apt. Its because lee is related to george washington. Both men, by virtue of being exemplars of their respective sides, bring that with them. They bring the outside forces into the room beyond themselves. They bring in what they represent. To understand appomattox and how it reverberates going forward. I want to talk and introduce an underappreciated quote, one that i think sums up the causes of the war better than any other. The origins of the civil war lay in the growing tension between two completely different types of society bound together under one government. The issue of slavery sharpened hatreds. Two societies, one government, and slavery is an aggravating factor in all of this. What does that mean . I want to give you a couple of statistics as we develop this. In 1860, one in four northerners lived in cities. Only one in 10 southerners did. In the south, 84 farmed. Southern investment in factories halved. In 1851, only two confederate cities had a population over 40,000, whereas the north had 19 cities that could claim to cross that threshold. Largest city in the confedarcy, april 1, 1865, was in Northern Virginia. A secessionist from texas spoke for many southerners when he said we want no manufacturing, mechanical or manufacturing classes. northerners also tended to be more literate and better read than their southern counterparts. The proportion of seven children went to school with half that of southern children. 1860 per capita newspaper in the north was triple that of the south. The of illiteracy among whites in the south ran triple that of white northerners. If blacks and slaves were added, the