Comes to us from the Macarthur Fund in norfolk virginia. The only thing that is really equitable in the cap thing he is overseeing would be a president ial library. That is a really significant thing. Think about what Douglas Macarthur did during world war ii during the years afterwards. He really shaped the face of the pacific in a way that no one else has. And so that repository of documents and memorabilia and artifacts is really a significant component of the 20th century. That is his day job. By 19 is still in love with the american civil war. He has since gone on to perryville hes got onto the led them inn museum norfolk at the macarthur he still goes to bed at night in dreams about the civil war. Delight toeat introduce to you my great brethren chris kolakowski. I have been introduced many many ways and many many years and consistently the most 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 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Christopher 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. It is in 1956. He said, 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 in the 1850s. Think about that. Two societies, one government, and slavery is an aggravating factor in all of this. What does that mean . Let me give you a couple of statistics as we develop this. In 1860, one in four northerners lived in cities. Wheres only one in 10 southerners did. Only 40 of northerners work in agriculture. In the south, 84 farmed. Southern investment in factories halved. In only two confederate cities 1861, 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 southern children who went to school were half that of northern children. 1860 per capita, 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 south was eight times more illiterate than at the north. In the free states, there was a commitment to education for Economic Prosperity and freedom. If you think about the careers of Abraham Lincoln and grant, they exemplify that last statement. I want to address the elephant in the room, both in 1865 and today. I will turn to mcpherson for a cogent discussion. Most crucial demographic difference resulted from slavery. 95 of the countrys black people lived in the slave states. The implications of this, for the economy and social institutions, are obvious. This is what montgomery is talking about, about the issue of slavery sharpening hatreds. White supremacy in the south is so much greater as to constitute a different order of magnitude to contribute more than any more factor to differences between the north and south. The fear that slavery was being hemmed in and threatened with destruction contributed to an aggressive style of behavior before the civil war. That is not to venerate one side and demonize the other. That is not the point. The point is that the civil war, two different visions of what the United States is and can be have met on the battlefield. , they are symbolized by grant and lee. What are these visions . Let me put them verys essentially can simply for you. Let me put them verys simply and succinctly for you. Lee, harking back to the postcolonial period, patrician, agrarian, insular. Dont get involved in a foreign alliances. Washingtons dictum to the new country. Grants and lincolns . The manifesto for this was issued at lincolns second inaugural. With malice towards none and charity to all. Peace between ourselves and all nations of the world. Christopher read the second inaugural because thats the new manifesto for the new world that lincoln is building. This country may have been founded in 1775, but it was refounded in 1865. The manifesto was the second inaugural, and the 13th, 14th, and 15th ammendments put pave to lincolns visions. International, hemispheric. If you read grants memoirs, the ending is great. People overlook the last chapter when he talks about the u. S. And makes predictions for where the United States is going. He is writing it before his death in 1855. One of the things he says is, the civil war has made us a nation of great power and intelligence. He predicts a major role for the u. S. In the world going forward. That is the vision that grant brings into wilmer mcleans parlor. He and lincoln are the exemplars of this, having risen from nothing, selfmade men, although grant had done a good job of losing fortunes he had made. Selfmade men. They had risen from very poor and modest beginnings to the statures and places that they now hold. This is the new america they are building on the ashes of the civil war. That is what both sides bring into wilmer mcleans parlor. This is what grant and lee are exemplars of. Grant, as he puts it, let them up easy. That is what lincoln told him to do. So he writes the terms, and i always found this to be an interesting thing. I am still unpacking what this means. I want to pose this to you because a lot of people gloss over the points of discussion between grant and lee. Grants realiz