Overview
To tell the story of Appomattox Court House, Marvel says, is to tell the history of the South in the Civil War - a struggle that lasted not four years but a lifetime, between the first sectional rumblings and the last gasp of reactionary rhetoric." "Marvel draws on original documents, diaries, and letters composed as the events unfolded to produce a clear and credible portrait of this place and the galvanizing events that unfolded there that is both typical and extraordinary. He depicts a village where black and white, rich and poor followed the fortunes of tobacco culture, and where - contrary to the Lost Cause image - rich and influential men managed to avoid the front if they preferred, leaving their poorer, older, and sometimes disabled neighbors to bear the battle for those who had begun it." "Marvel also scrutinizes Appomattox the national symbol, exposing many of the cherished myths surrounding the events there. In particular, he challenges the long-accepted view of the surrender, first perpetuated by Joshua Chamberlain and John B. Gordon, that enemies who had battled each other for four years suddenly laid down their arms and welcomed each other as brothers, setting aside political and philosophical differences that had fermented into hatred.Editorials
From the Publisher
William Marvel knows how to tell a good story. He is also a master at debunking myths and reinterpreting historical orthodoxy. (America's Civil War)One comes away with a renewed sense of just how difficult life was then, and just how devastating the Civil War was for the South. Marvel's singular gift comes in the presentation of the narrative. (Virginia Quarterly Review)
Marvel's thoroughly researched and handsomely illustrated work is recommended for Civil War collections and most libraries. (Library Journal
Perhaps [Marvel's] best book to date. (Publishers Weekly)
Rare is the historian who strikes a happy chord in all three of the disciplines necessary to produce a quality work of history: research, analysis, and writing. Marvel garners high marks on all counts. (Civil War Times)
America's Civil War
William Marvel knows how to tell a good story. He is also a master at debunking myths and reinterpreting historical orthodoxy.Virginia Quarterly Review
One comes away with a renewed sense of just how difficult life was then, and just how devastating the Civil War was for the South. Marvel's singular gift comes in the presentation of the narrative.Civil War Times
Rare is the historian who strikes a happy chord in all three of the disciplines necessary to produce a quality work of history: research, analysis, and writing. Marvel garners high marks on all counts.Publishers Weekly
A small town in Virginia that was unknown until April 1865, Appomattox grew out of a county founded in 1845, a backwater devoid of any events that made a splash outside the community. Marvel (Andersonville, etc.) examines its history as the village grew and its people generally prospered. When war came in 1861, Marvel follows the local men and boys who enthusiastically flocked to the colors and marched off to war. By April 1865, more than a hundred of them had fallen on eastern battlefields, especially at Gettysburg. Typifying the wartime history of a Confederate village, Appomattox's economy was in shambles at times, diseases were occasionally rampant and emotions ran high as dead bodies were brought home during the war. Then, Appomattox was thrust into national fame when Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant in Wilmer McLean's house; three days later, most rebel forces in the vicinity paraded for the last time before silent Union troops, stacked their arms and flags and went home. Marvel critically assesses the moment and takes apart several myths, especially the writings of the now-famed Joshua Chamberlain, who played up his own role in the surrender ceremony. The village fell into ruin after the war and eventually became largely forgotten except by those veterans who returned to look upon the hallowed ground of 1865. Preservation efforts began in the 1920s, and the field and reconstructed courthouse continue to draw visitors. Marvel faithfully and adeptly chronicles all of this, in perhaps his best book to date. Photos and maps. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|Library Journal
Appomattox Court House was nothing more than a rural hamlet before and after historical events brought the Confederate and Union armies together there. Marvel (The Alabama and the Kearsarge) chronicles the villagers' lives and many challenges, including class struggles with overbearing town elders, poor transportation, financial depressions, typhoid fever epidemics, and the loss of husbands, sons, and sweethearts in an increasingly unpopular civil war. Marvel's constant shifts between the war and its impact on the Appomattox homefront are not always seamless, but his account of local fighting in early 1865 is dramatically rendered. The author salutes the contributions of the Freedman's Bureau and the Union provost marshal's constabulary toward education and domestic tranquility, respectively, but concedes in closing chapters that a depressed regional economy, labor problems, and geographic isolation had doomed the long-range prospects of his settlement. Marvel's thoroughly researched and handsomely illustrated work is recommended for Civil War collections and most libraries.--John Carver Edwards, Univ. of Georgia Libs., Athens Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\Lincoln Herald
We “know” three things about Appomattox Court House:
o Robert E. Lee surrendered to U.S. Grant there.
o Wilmer McLean relearned a bitter lesson he had already absorbed at Manassas: In real estate, it’s location, location, location.
o Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and John Brown Gordon commanded a dramatic surrender ceremony in which the victors saluted the vanquished and started the nation on its path to reconciliation.
Well, two out of three ain’t bad.
In A Place Called Appomattox, William Marvel departs from his social history of the Virginia village to explode a few myths about that ceremony.
The one about Grant’s selection of Chamberlain to command the formation is especially egregious. In Marvel’s view, Grant didn’t even envision such a ceremony. The generals he’d left in charge – John Gibbon and Charles Griffin – came up with it as a way rub the Southerners’ noses in defeat.
And Chamberlain wasn’t in command at all. His brigade was part of the Fifth Corps division that took the surrender, meaning Joseph Bartlett, the division commander, was actually in charge.
Was there a salute? Not really. In a move designed more to keep order than to greet the surrendering rebels, Chamberlain ordered his brigade to shoulder arms. Had he intended a salute, he would have told his men to present arms.
So how did the myth come about? In Marvel’s words, “while [Chamberlain] was courageous and coolheaded he also tended to wrap life’s little dramas in ribbons of romantic imagery in which he, himself, was somehow entwined.” Chamberlain embellished his memory of the event some thirty years after the fact, when comrades who could have disputed his version were long dead. When fellow politician Gordon caught wind of Chamberlain’s story, he chose not to refute it, but added a few frills of his own.
In Marvel’s book, the story of the surrender is the climax to a narrative that begins in 1845, when the Virginia General Assembly decided to carve out a new county. The county seat grew around a run-down tavern through events considerably less dramatic than the 1865 surrender that made the village famous.
In fact, so undramatic is the story of Appomattox and its people that, in less skilled hands, this book would be downright tedious. Marvel’s flair for language turns a collection of vital statistics – births, deaths, marriages and real estate transactions – into a living story of humanity.
In A Place Called Appomattox, we come to know some ordinary people who lived their lives in an extraordinary time. The war had a profound effect on those lives, even though there was little or no combat in the vicinity until that fateful Palm Sunday weekend in 1865.
Like their contemporaries from every community north and south, many of the village’s young men lost their lives in battle, and even more died of disease. But Marvel reminds us of a fact that’s frequently overlooked: The era’s diseases took almost as heavy a toll on those who stayed at home. (Typhoid fever seemed to be the biggest killer.)
Not every man of the village marched off to the defense of Old Virginia. A great many, especially those with money and influence, did what they could to stay out of harm’s way – joining the militia, finding an occupation that carried a draft exemption, or just pulling strings.
Newcomer Wilmer McLean, whose parlor was the site of the surrender, wasn’t the village’s most distinguished citizen. That title would belong to Thomas Bocock, a local politician who became Speaker of the Confederate House of Representatives.
Another resident was an even more storied figure – Sam Sweeney, the banjo-playing mascot of J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry. Sweeney’s brother, Joel, who also lived in the village, is credited with perfecting the five-string banjo, as well as developing the minstrel show as a vehicle for his new instrument.
Not long after the war ended, Appomattox Court House began to decline. By the turn of the century, it was almost a ghost town. It wasn’t the war or Reconstruction but mundane economic factors that led to the village’s demise. In fact, whatever life the locality has today is due to the war. With an assist from the National Park Service, it has become a tourist magnet.
A Place Called Appomattox is a lively, compelling look at the Civil War’s human story. And you’ll never think of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain the same way again.
.
— Jerry Carrier
Lincoln Herald
We “know” three things about Appomattox Court House:o Robert E. Lee surrendered to U.S. Grant there.
o Wilmer McLean relearned a bitter lesson he had already absorbed at Manassas: In real estate, it’s location, location, location.
o Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and John Brown Gordon commanded a dramatic surrender ceremony in which the victors saluted the vanquished and started the nation on its path to reconciliation.
Well, two out of three ain’t bad.
In A Place Called Appomattox, William Marvel departs from his social history of the Virginia village to explode a few myths about that ceremony.
The one about Grant’s selection of Chamberlain to command the formation is especially egregious. In Marvel’s view, Grant didn’t even envision such a ceremony. The generals he’d left in charge – John Gibbon and Charles Griffin – came up with it as a way rub the Southerners’ noses in defeat.
And Chamberlain wasn’t in command at all. His brigade was part of the Fifth Corps division that took the surrender, meaning Joseph Bartlett, the division commander, was actually in charge.
Was there a salute? Not really. In a move designed more to keep order than to greet the surrendering rebels, Chamberlain ordered his brigade to shoulder arms. Had he intended a salute, he would have told his men to present arms.
So how did the myth come about? In Marvel’s words, “while [Chamberlain] was courageous and coolheaded he also tended to wrap life’s little dramas in ribbons of romantic imagery in which he, himself, was somehow entwined.” Chamberlain embellished his memory of the event some thirty years after the fact, when comrades who could have disputed his version were long dead. When fellow politician Gordon caught wind of Chamberlain’s story, he chose not to refute it, but added a few frills of his own.
In Marvel’s book, the story of the surrender is the climax to a narrative that begins in 1845, when the Virginia General Assembly decided to carve out a new county. The county seat grew around a run-down tavern through events considerably less dramatic than the 1865 surrender that made the village famous.
In fact, so undramatic is the story of Appomattox and its people that, in less skilled hands, this book would be downright tedious. Marvel’s flair for language turns a collection of vital statistics – births, deaths, marriages and real estate transactions – into a living story of humanity.
In A Place Called Appomattox, we come to know some ordinary people who lived their lives in an extraordinary time. The war had a profound effect on those lives, even though there was little or no combat in the vicinity until that fateful Palm Sunday weekend in 1865.
Like their contemporaries from every community north and south, many of the village’s young men lost their lives in battle, and even more died of disease. But Marvel reminds us of a fact that’s frequently overlooked: The era’s diseases took almost as heavy a toll on those who stayed at home. (Typhoid fever seemed to be the biggest killer.)
Not every man of the village marched off to the defense of Old Virginia. A great many, especially those with money and influence, did what they could to stay out of harm’s way – joining the militia, finding an occupation that carried a draft exemption, or just pulling strings.
Newcomer Wilmer McLean, whose parlor was the site of the surrender, wasn’t the village’s most distinguished citizen. That title would belong to Thomas Bocock, a local politician who became Speaker of the Confederate House of Representatives.
Another resident was an even more storied figure – Sam Sweeney, the banjo-playing mascot of J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry. Sweeney’s brother, Joel, who also lived in the village, is credited with perfecting the five-string banjo, as well as developing the minstrel show as a vehicle for his new instrument.
Not long after the war ended, Appomattox Court House began to decline. By the turn of the century, it was almost a ghost town. It wasn’t the war or Reconstruction but mundane economic factors that led to the village’s demise. In fact, whatever life the locality has today is due to the war. With an assist from the National Park Service, it has become a tourist magnet.
A Place Called Appomattox is a lively, compelling look at the Civil War’s human story. And you’ll never think of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain the same way again.
.