This book summarizes the era of the most intense debate over slavery, the Civil War, and the Reconstruction struggle, encapsulating it within the experience of one small Virginia Piedmont community, the name of which came to represent the nexus between the antebellum and postwar worlds. Appomattox County came into existence just as Texas entered the Union, and as the fruits of the Mexican War excited the conflict over expanding slavery into the new territories. As the spot where Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses Grant, Appomattox Court House ultimately represen ... More

This book summarizes the era of the most intense debate over slavery, the Civil War, and the Reconstruction struggle, encapsulating it within the experience of one small Virginia Piedmont community, the name of which came to represent the nexus between the antebellum and postwar worlds. Appomattox County came into existence just as Texas entered the Union, and as the fruits of the Mexican War excited the conflict over expanding slavery into the new territories. As the spot where Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses Grant, Appomattox Court House ultimately represented the close of the war that determined the fate of slavery. The county saw, first-hand, the old plantation aristocracy's efforts to re-impose a semblance of slavery under a veneer of nominal freedom, but the region lost its agricultural dominance and Appomattox Court House became a backwater even within the county. The decline of the famous village was nearly complete when a resurgence of interest in its historical significance brought one final economic opportunity in its transformation into a national monument.