Appomattax Court House

Today marks the 150th anniversary of Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House. (The formal ceremony, which entailed the disbandment of the Army of Northern Virginia, would take place three days later, on April 12.)

Although this did not actually put an end to the Civil War--other Confederate armies continued to fight on, for about another month--it effectively sealed the Confederacy's fate.

 

Wandering around the board's, mostly to get away from the Russian propaganda on the first page, and caught this one. Glad someone else shares an interest in the American Civil War. There is no Mod Warning on the OP, so guess I can comment.

After Lee's surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, Lincoln was waiting on the surrender of a smaller Confederate force in North Carolina, which General Lee was attempting to merge with, under General Johnston, in North Carolina. Lee's army was cut off in its retreat by the Army of the Potomac standing in their path ahead. There also were a few last skirmishes out West, and around Mississippi and Texas, but nothing on the scale that could bring any change to the end of the Confederacy when Lee surrendered his army, by then reduced to approximately 23,000-25,000 men.

Being the experienced commander that he was, General Lee decided to seek surrender terms from General Grant, reluctantly, and that morning, sent out messengers to the Federal lines to locate Grant. One of them was the 22-year old dashing General George Armstrong Custer, who, riding through the rain, finally reached General Grant and advised him Lee was seeking a meeting. Everyone was eager for the end, but no cease-fire was in place, so hostilities still existed, and had there been any gunfire, even by accident, many soldiers would die on the final day of the war unnecessarily, because the Confederates were finished with the fight.

The meeting took place in the McClain House, in Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia. Oddly, that residence was owned by the man whose farm was overrun during the Battle of Manasses, (First Bull Run if you are of Northern sympathies, the two histories have different names for the same battles). Northern history lists the only battle in Maryland as Antietam, after the creek on the battlefield, same as Bull Run Creek; Southern history lists that battle after the town there, Sharpsburg. Gets a bit confusing if one isn't aware of it.'

Anyway, Mr. McClain had moved his family off of the farm in Manasses, Virginia after the Bull Run battle, and moved them far out to the western portion of Virginia, to escape the horror's of the war. Surprisingly, the war started and ended on his property. General Grant, mud splattered, met an elegantly uniformed, tough old General Lee there, and followed President Lincoln's instructions, given verbally, but written down by both Grant and other officers present at a meeting at City Point, Virginia, that Lincoln's words were. "General, they will eventually approach you with terms to end it. My advice is let em up easy."

The surrender and death of the Confederate States of America (Richmond had already been burned to the ground, and the Confederate political leader's were running for exile, but were captured), essentially ended the war. The surrender terms were generous.

Surrender your arms
Surrender your flag
Take an oath never to take up arms against the government again, and you are paroled to return to your homes

General Lee, along with everyone we know of took that oath, however, Lee's paper he signed when he took it, was lost to history, until 1984 when it was located again. For years after the war, the Lee family had attempted to get Congress to reinstate his citizenship, but didn't know he had taken the oath and become a citizen again at Appomattox Courthouse. Had General Lee not taken the oath, it is doubtful any Confederate soldier would have. They also petitioned for the return of their home above the hill at Arlington, Virginia, (today's site of Arlington National Cemetery), and were denied, although Congress did vote the family a stipend eventually to cover the cost of confiscating the land.

The stacking of arms by the Army of Northern Virginia was supervised by Union General Joshua Chamberlain, the excellent past commander of the 20th Maine Regiment which had fought off charge after charge at Little Round Top on the second day at Gettysburg. Eventually running out of ammunition, and attacking the charging Confederate regiments of Alabama and Texas there, with a bayonet charge down the hill. Chamberlain suffered several wounds during the war, including being shot through both hips, and having six horses shot out from underneath him in battle. A rhetoric and religious professor at Bowdoin College in Maine before, and again after the war, he is one of America's most improbable and superb commanders. He was so moved by the ranks of Confederates walking through the Union lines and stacking their firearms, that he called the Union Army to strict attention in their honor, citing their discipline, and respecting their courage as a fighting unit.

There were some minor discussions at the surrender ceremony in the main room of the McClain House about officer's maintaining their handguns and horses, which was permitted, and eventually Lee returned to his headquarters. Meanwhile, Union commander's and officers present at the surrender ceremony in the McClain House, stripped the home of most of its furnishings for souvenir's. The table that Lee and Grant sat at writing out the surrender terms was given to General Custer as a present for his wife.

A brooding General Lee would take up residence in Richmond, Virginia, with his two man staff, where he was besieged by Civil War photographer Matthew Brady to sit for a photograph. That photograph of the stern General, and his assistant Walter Taylor, stares out at history, capturing the gruff and disciplined 65-year old Lee, one of America's most beloved heroes, even more so than General Grant, who would serve two terms as President of the United States. Only General Dwight Eisenhower in American military history probably was more respected by his troops and the nation, than Lee. I can't think of any others.

At Gettysburg, General Lee was feeling the first twinges of heart disease which would kill him at age 70. He eventually departed Richmond as a civilian, however, in the short time he remained in uniform there, most of the surviving Confederate General's, Longstreet, Johnston, Pickett, came to visit him. Pickett was a reluctant visitor. Although he brooded the rest of his life over the loss of his division on the third day at Gettysburg, and had gone far enough up the slope with his troops to be knocked to the ground by a Union canon burst, he survived onto great glory in the South for the poor decision of General Lee to attack the Union center that day in what became known as Pickett's Charge. After that charge, the Army Of Northern Virginia never again went on the offensive, despite fighting another two bloody years against Grant before surrendering. Pickett's comment to Longstreet after visiting and paying their respect's to Lee in Richmond, were "that old man cost me my entire division at Gettysburg, he is no friend of mine."

President Lincoln lived on long enough to see the Civil War end at Appomattox, even mingling with a crowd on the White House lawn in a celebration where the band's were playing the song "Dixie." Lincoln commented that since the rebels were defeated, the song rightfully was now the property of the Union. He issued no particular order's to his Generals or Secretary of War Stanton, on attempting to capture the Southern politicians in hiding, and only one was hung after the war, the commander of the Georgia Andersonville Prison, in hindsight, unfairly, due to lack of medical attention to Union detainees there and the number of deaths. He didn't have enough medicine for Confederate fighting troops, let alone enough for the massive number of prisoners. Lincoln generally was reluctant on prisoner exchanges, because he knew the South would run out of soldiers eventually, and he wouldn't, with the influx of European immigrants, and the freed slaves who joined the Union Army.

Robert E. Lee became the President of a small liberal arts college, Washington College, in Lexington, Virginia, home of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), the same town where Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, another college professor who taught at VMI, was buried after being shot by accident by his own pickets after dark at Chancellorsville, Virginia. Lee is buried in a lower crypt of the chapel at the college, eventually renamed Washington-Lee University, still offering a fine liberal arts education today. On the lawn across from the chapel, under the trees, the remains of his famous war horse, Traveler, are also buried, and Southern children to this day, visiting Lee's tomb, drop dots of sugar, and pieces of apples on that lawn as "treats for Traveler."

General Chamberlain recovered from his wounds, but probably was in pain the rest of his life, he lived on almost to 90-years old, serving several terms as Governor of Maine, and President of Bowdoin College there. One of our most decorated soldiers, he was treated on his deathbed by the same surgeon who treated him for one of his six battle wounds throughout the war, at Petersburg, Virginia. General Longstreet would also live well into his 80's, but was somewhat shunned by Southerners because his opposition to Lee's impossible order for General Pickett to take the Federal Center at Gettysburg, was well known. Despite being one of the worst General's in history regarding provisions and rest for his always outnumbered Army of Northern Virginia, General Lee's fighting capability was unmatched, General Grant and the Federal Army took two years to bring it to a halt, sacrificing about 5-1 in dead to stop the Confederates. Lee's reputation is unmatched and safe in America's history................

 

Outstanding summary. I normally do not read posts of this length, but it was well worth it. You know your history my friend.

 

The Civil War was a hugely romantic time in American history once one gets past the thought of the way spilled intestines must have smelled, the mounds of amputated arms and legs, the screams, the corpses putrefying in the afternoon sun, and the prison camps, starvation and dysentery on both sides. Makes one yearn for another one so we can resurrect those dashing cavalry boys Stuart and Custer, you know, the hats, the scarves, the swords. They've been dead way too long.

 

Johnston surrendered the army to Sherman on April 26, 1865; totalling almost 90,000 men.

Arguably the first modern General was Sherman, he advocated the strategy of "cruel necessity." If an asset had value to the enemy, the order was to destroy it. Crops and homes burned..railroads destroyed...Union troops were ordered to remove rails, heat them up and twist them around trees until they were of no use. "Sherman's neck ties."


I think to this very day, native Georgians despise Sherman and view his warfighting techniques as less than honorable.

 

I dunno, is it honorable for a general to allow a war drag on indefinitely? I really don't know.

 

Sherman's motivation was to end the war as quickly as possible. The South will always hate him of course, but his strategy did help end the war sooner rather than later.

 

That is correct, sir. Who knows if the South would have been any better off in the end if he had not gone on his little rampage.

 

Absolutely correct. His march to the sea, from Atlanta to Columbia, South Carolina, troops destroyed everything of value in the civilian towns and farms that would help the Confederate Army. It was a scorched earth march, destroying a 60-mile wide swath throughout Georgia and South Carolina. Sherman spared beautiful Savannah, Georgia, because the resident's came out and greeted him and his troops with whiskey, wine, and hospitality, giving him full reign of the city, where he set up a headquarters in, and sent President Lincoln a telegram presenting the City of Savannah to Lincoln as a Christmas present. Meanwhile, his troops moved about 130 miles forward and burned the South Carolina capital of Columbia to the ground. His famous "War Is Hell" policy would essentially become the basis of American and many other armies standard operating procedures in war. Destroying not only troops and facilities, and weapons, but the civilian population's ability to assist their army in continuing to fight. The Union has plenty of railroad lines throughout which Lincoln and Stanton skillfully used in moving troops and supplies to thwart the Confederates, whose tracks were not as extensive, and telegraph lines which kept the President in communication, while Union troops destroyed the Confederate ones. The United States bombing raids during World War II over Germany and Japan, destroying city after city, industrial plant after industrial plant, and of course, civilian casualties, including those destroyed with the atomic bomb blasts, was an extension of Sherman's "War Is Hell" philosophy. It wasn't repeated so much in Korea, because our air force didn't have the targets, and MacArthur, commanding our UN - U.S. troops, kept calling for the massive, million man Chinese Army, which entered that war on Christmas day, to surrender personally to him; and advocated and kept bothering President Truman, to unleash the Nationalist Chinese Army on Formosa against the Chinese mainland. The Nationalists couldn't have beaten a Girl Scout troop in battle, and Truman, desperately attempting to negotiate a cease fire with the Chinese, eventually tired of MacArthur and sacked him. We repeated the same type of bombing later in Vietnam, wiping out hundreds of thousand's or acres of jungle, controlled the Central Highlands of Vietnam for over a decade, and bombed Hanoi and Haiphong, but an unwillingness to attack North Vietnam with a massive force to take it out of the war, due to a fear of Communist China entering again like they did in Korea, eliminated any chance of America winning in Vietnam. It was unbelievable how both South and North Vietnam continued for 14-years to soak up America's firepower and refuse to quit. Sherman's philosophy was correct, but he is still hated in Georgia. Good post and point..........

 

Excellent post!

Yes, the final battle of the Civil War, Palmino Hill (a.k.a. Palmino Ranch) was a skirmish in Texas. It was actually a Confederate victory--but talk about a pyrrhic victory!

Of course, as you (presumably) are aware, George Custer's fate was not a good one. It came to a head in 1876, in eastern Montana, at a place known as the Little Bighorn...

Yes, several battles are differently named, as you have suggested.

Probably the worst thing that happened to the South, in this time frame, was not Lee's defeat at Petersburg, but the assassination of then-President Lincoln. He had vowed, in his second inaugural address: "With malice toward none, [and] with charity for all." But John Wilkes Booth put an end to that; and the so-called "Radical Republicans" of that time made the Reconstruction Era twelve years of hell for the defeated South.

Yes, those were very generous terms of surrender, indeed.

Grant, like Lincoln, had no apparent desire to crush the South; merely to end the insurgency, and reunify the country.

The first two days of Gettysburg were rather indecisive; and may even have tilted slightly toward the Confederacy. But it was the third day (as we all know) that was all-important; and for which, we remember the Battle of Gettysburg.

Note: An even more important event--within just 24 hours of the third day at Gettysburg--was the successful siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi, as it effectively divided the Confederacy; troops from Texas and Arkansas were no longer one with Southern troops from elsewhere in the Confederacy.

 

Thanks for the update and correction on General Johnston's army. There was a small portion of it in North Carolina which General Lee kept moving West in an attempt to swing South and join with, but he kept getting blocked, flanked, and bled dry by Grant's Army at this point of the war. Johnston surrendered the Army Of The Tennessee, 90,000 strong, shortly after Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Courthouse.

Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy condemned Johnston for surrendering that army, which was the only one left on the field to fight, but Davis had been apprehended, and thrown into prison at Fortress Monroe in Norfolk, Virginia.

Interesting place, Fortress Monroe, where Davis was imprisoned, because nobody really knew what they wanted to do with him. He eventually was freed and returned to his home in Mississippi, after being locked up in the prison for a number of years. The Army engineer who built Fortress Monroe early in his career, was a young Lieutenant from Virginia named Robert E. Lee. Additionally, in more modern times, some renovations were made on the old fortress, still an active army base, and the construction workers broke through a wall, and found the skeleton of a man chained to the floor, who had been sealed up inside by the brick wall. In a short story named "The Cask Of The Amontillado" a murderer lures his enemy down into a damp, dark, brick basement, where he proceeds to seal him up inside of a wall with bricks. That story was written by Edgar Allen Poe, who served a short stint in the Union Army before the Civil War, and actually was stationed at Fortress Monroe, where he learned of a legend that an officer who was so brutal to his troops, was captured one night by them, taken to a basement of the fortress, and chained to the floor, and the area was sealed up with bricks. It was only considered a legend at the time Poe heard the story, but that skeleton that was found exactly that way, chained to the floor, meant that legend was true. Truth is stranger than fiction - so is coincidence.

When General Lee conferred with his staff about surrendering his army so the men could return home and survive, several of his General's advised him not to do it, and to just release the men from their enlistment, and let them find their own way home. Lee knew - and told his staff this - that doing so would be a dangerous and unforgivable action, because it would unleash thousands of soldiers, armed to the teeth, against the citizenry of the South, without being under the control and supervision of officers, and they would turn into a rebellious mob and cause great destruction. Just shows how smart, and honorable General Lee was.

Of course, General Lee and General George Armstrong Custer, are the two most significant American Civil War Generals remember in our history, despite there being numerous member's of that West Point class of 1861, who served on both sides. Lee accepted defeat heavily, but felt the South's most important activity after the war was education, that's why he accepted the position of President of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia.

General Custer, was a dashing, 22-year old General, the youngest in either army during the Civil War, most remembered for bravery, but also, vainglorious, as his later actions in the Plains Indians War's, and his demise at Little Big Horn against the Sioux of the famous chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, would prove out. Three hundred or so trooper's of the 7th Cavalry, and Custer himself, galloped into what they thought was a Sioux camp containing few warriors, and mostly women and children. It contained approximately 6,000 Sioux warriors. The Battle of the Little Big Horn didn't last long.

One final note, because I am a student of the American Civil War. Although Gettysburg was a tug of war for two days, Chamberlain's 20th Maine Regiment prevented Captain Oakes Alabama and Texas regiments from flanking the Union Army on Little Round Top on Day 2 there. The 20th Maine was the last Union regiment in the line. Had the Confederates managed to flank them, they would have rolled up the Union Army into full retreat, and an open road would have existed all the way to Washington, D.C.

On Day 3 of Gettysburg, Lee issues his order for Pickett to take 12,000 men on a straight uphill march, preceded by over an hour cannonade against the Union center. General Pickett's regiment, led by General's Garnett; Kemper and Armistead, led that charge, straight into Union musketry and cannon fire, and flanked at "The Bloody Angle" the Union troops were firing straight into the charging Confederates. Armistead led what became known as the "High point of the Confederacy" as his soldiers got to the stone wall where the Union troops were firing from behind. That wall makes a right angle, and guarding "The Bloody Angle" were the final two operating cannon's of Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing, 4th New York Artillery, a 22-year old officer. His other four guns had been knocked out during the cannonade preceding Pickett's Charge, and he had been mortally wounded himself through the groin by shrapnel from the Confederate cannons, all aimed at the clump of trees, still there today, trying to open a path for the infantry. Cushing was holding his intestines inside his stomach with one hand, for almost an hour throughout the cannonade, bleeding to death, but as Armistead and the Confederates arrived at "The Bloody Angle" he was able to unleash four massive shotgun, double canister blast's from those two canon's, assisted by his First Sergeant, stopping the Confederate troops cold. He was killed by a shot through the mouth seconds later, and is buried in the West Point Military Cemetery. I happened to grow up in a small town south of Buffalo, New York, on Cushing Street, named after Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing, who was awarded a Medal of Honor for his actions at Gettysburg. It was his hometown, and his Civil War picture still hangs in the lobby of the local bank there. When I first learned this story, became a student of the American Civil War, and it has held my interest throughout my lifetime.

In another quirk, Union Colonel Strong Vincent, a Harvard graduate, was the officer who ordered than Commander Joshua Chamberlain of the 20th Maine Regiment, into position at the end of the Union army's left flank at Gettysburg, that famed regiment that day getting set and loaded for battle placed just 15-minutes before the arrival of the Confederate troops booming up the Little Round Top incline through the woods. It was that close. Colonel Strong Vincent was mortally wounded at Gettysburg on the other side of the hill, at Devil's Den, where famed Confederate General John Bell Hood's Texans fought and were slaughtered attempting to fight their way up an impossible boulder strewn, steep hill. They didn't make it to the Union lines, thus the Confederate's logically moved to the right looking for an easier way up, and ran into the 20th Maine Regiment, and the Little Round Top fight.

My High School used to play football and basketball against Erie, Pennsylvania's Strong Vincent High School, a school named after Colonel Vincent, a native of Erie, Pennsylvania..................

 

For the record, I reside in Tennessee; which was the final state to secede from the Union, and join the Confederacy. What many people (apparently) do not realize, however, is just how close Tennessee came to splitting in two, over this allegiance, in 1861--much as the Western part of Virginia split off from the state of Virginia, and thereby formed the state of West Virginia.

Although east Tennessee never formally split from the rest of the state (thereby forming another state), the differences between east Tennessee and both middle Tennessee and west Tennessee are obvious even today. East Tennessee, still, is a Republican stronghold; whereas middle Tennessee and west Tennessee are considerably more mixed in their sentiments. Because of the influence of east Tennessee, however, Tennessee remains a reliable red state.

 

The Volunteer State, last to join the Confederacy, and only Virginia saw more bloody fighting during the war. Tennessee's Rivers were a direct line into the heart of the Confederacy, and of course, the Cumberland Gap was a path into Northern territory. Shiloh Church; Chattanooga; Stones River; Nashville and Franklin, major battles. General Grant made his reputation in the Union Army fighting in Tennessee and the West. World War 11 iconic general Douglas MacArthur's father, Arthur MacArthur, actually was awarded the Medal Of Honor for leading - believe it was the Michigan forces - in a suicidal attack up the mountain at Chattanooga, a battle which started without orders from officers, the Union troops just went after the Confederates to the surprise of the General's. Bitterly divided, President Lincoln, to maintain control of part of Tennessee and its population, would select Senator Andrew Johnson from a Confederate State, Tennessee, as his Vice Presidential running mate in the election of 1864. I have an old friend who moved up there from Florida to retire at, think it is Gaitlenberg near Knoxville and loves it. Never driver through the state, however, the VOLS logo at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville can be read from 37,000 feet up in a commercial jet easily. The Confederacy also accepted Delaware and Kentucky into their ranks, although neither state seceded. Lincoln held Delaware, Missouri, Kentucky and most importantly, Maryland, in the Union by force.

At the start of the war, when Union recruits who answered Lincoln's call for volunteers to come to protect Washington, they had to change trains at Baltimore and march through the streets, where they were routinely accosted by the citizen's favorable to the South. Rocks; bottles; even bullets were used against them. Lincoln sent General Benjamin Butler there quickly, with an order to burn Baltimore to the ground the very next time the troops were accosted, and to fire on the citizenry involved. That took care of Baltimore, they quickly stopped their harassment. Butler than moved onto Annapolis where he took over the Maryland State legislature, and ordered an anti-secession bill for the state keeping it officially in the Union - at gunpoint. Maryland would remain in the Union and only one major battle, the bloodiest afternoon in American military history, Antietam (or Sharpsburg if you are reading Southern historians), ensued. It was a draw, but did stop General Lee's first invasion of the North in 1862, and permitted Lincoln to issue his Emancipation Proclamation later. General Butler would eventually end up as the occupying General in New Orleans, as the Union gained control of the Mississippi River. In New Orleans the local women of the town treated the Union soldiers to insults and even spit and punched them on the street on occasion. Butler settled that by posting a city wide order that any female accosting Union troops should be treated as a "lady of the streets - prostitutes" and thrown into jail. That settled the hash quickly.

At Shiloh Church, everybody found out just how bloody the American Civil War was going to be, when 22,000 deaths were suffered there in the Union defense of a critical position, with the river behind them, and no escape. The first casualties at Gettysburg were from the Confederate General Harry Heath's regiments moving down the Chambersburg Pike into the town, and being stopped by General Buford's dismounted cavalry, and later in the afternoon, General Reynolds arrival on the field with 25,000 infantry. Heath's lead division were from Tennessee on July 1, 1963. Reynolds unfortunately would be killed that day, and the Confederates arrived with massive force, driving the Union troops off Seminary Ridge, back through the village of Gettysburg (which was never the prize), and up the steep sloops on the other side of the town, and occupied most of the heights overlooking Gettysburg from Cemetery Hill, all the way back to Little Round Top, although General Meade didn't recognize the vulnerability of his left flank on Little Round Top, arriving on the field around midnight. Colonial Strong Vincent, however, did recognize the vulnerability of the Union left flank, and quickly the next morning moved the 20th Maine Regiment of Chamberlain's, into the line, as the last troops and they prevented a Southern flanking attack that would have won the battle. Lee was angry with General Buell, for failure to continue the attack on the first day there, when the disorganized Union Army was consolidating its position on those heights. It was Buell's Army coming over the mountains from Carlisle, directly behind the Union lines, being attacked from the front, that forced the evacuation of Gettysburg on Day 1. Buell had a case of the "slows" and the result would be 54,000 dead over the next 48 hours in the battle most written about in history..................

 

Good read, but Sherman is hardly the first to do awful things to the loser.

Alexander at Tyre or Scippio at Carthage may be the first written examples. Don't even get me started with Ghengis Khan...

But I'm sure that strategy is as old as when the first caveman burned out the second caveman a cave because, well because of who knows what

 

Lee was carrying out an excellent strategy until he went to Gettysburg and ignored his generals warnings that the Union forces were in a very strong position and that it would be better to go directly to Washington DC because they had depleted their defensive forces to reinforce Gettysburg. Lee said that He was going to attack that hill no matter what and in essence destroyed the Confederate Army.

Lee's behavior at Gettysburg indicates he was taking orders from someone to deliberately destroy the Confederate Army under his command.

Lee's behavior much resembles MacArthur's sabotage of the Philippines shortly after Pearl Harbor when he kept the air forces tightly parked on the ground until the Japanese attacked them.
MacArthur also sabotages the food supplies, medicals supplies and ammunition supplies of the Philippines.
And it was the decoders in the Philippines who had decoded the Japanese radio codes and had notified Washington of the impending Japanese attack, that Marhall and Roosevelt kept secret.
You can imagine that they didn't want the Americans in the Philippines to survive and spill the beans.

 

There was no Internet or TV News stations back then so quite a few in the Confederate Army had no idea about Lee's surrender.

 

An historical romance somewhat. Parts of what you posted are true, other's are not. Roosevelt, in fact, ordered MacArthur to abandon the Philippines personally, so he wasn't used by the Japanese as a "Tokyo Rose" propaganda tool, so Mac turned over the U.S. Army and the Filipino Army to Wainwright, who eventually, due to the lack of combat aircraft to defend themselves, would have to surrender it.

As Mac fled to Australia, Wainwright remained a POW for all those years of the war, General Wainwright thought he was going to be tried after the war, in fact, he, and the British Commander of Singapore - who also was captured in the early Japanese push after Pearl Harbor, were aboard the Missouri battleship and each received one of the pens used in the surrender ceremony. The Japanese managed to catch the British battleships "Prince Of Wales" and "Repulse" cruising in the South China Sea, the day after Pearl Harbor, without any air cover, and sank them both, eliminating Western naval influence in the Pacific at the start of the war. Winston Churchill was immensely surprised the the alleged "Fortress Singapore" didn't actually exist, Japan managed to take it from the rear, because its massive artillery was pointed out-to-sea.

That MacArthur's Cavete Naval Station in the Philippines, with 250 American combat aircraft, and more importantly, our submarine pens, was destroyed on December 8th, 1941, a full day after the air raid on Pearl Harbor, is always explained away as Mac not believing the Japs could hit so many places at the same time. It wasn't a deliberate move. Military commander's in the field never have the right to be surprised in battle at anytime - they are specifically trained not to allow that to happen, and routinely allow it to. In his own auto-biography and the one written by William Manchester entitled "American Caesar" - MacArthur's failure in the Philippines is glossed over, and more emphasis is placed on his arrival in Australia, where he casually makes the remark, "President Roosevelt ordered me out and I shall return." Much was made of that casual remark. He would return, but by the time he does, the U.S. really didn't need to tackle the Japanese navy at Leyte Gulf, or retake the Philippines. They could have bypassed it like they did the huge Japanese naval buildup on the Truck Island's and let it starve until surrendering.

As for who wanted what to happen politically? The American-Filipano Army's defense of Bataan for 6-months after Mac left there, stalled the Japanese push, gave the U.S. Navy time to repair many ships, set up the "Doolittle Raid" of bombers launched off of an aircraft carrier over Tokyo, where they did no damage, but lifted American civilian morale and totally embarrassed Admiral Yammamoto to revenge, that he sent the Japanese fleet out to take Midway Island, and lure America's carriers into battle.

We had broken Japan's combat naval code - so this time, our carriers were laying in wait for them, and managed to destroy their four front line aircraft carriers and 400 of their combat pilots which hit Pearl Harbor, a loss the Japanese never recovered from. Midway leveled the playing field in the Pacific in America's favor.

As for political decisions made - Roosevelt was in favor of war, but until December 7th, 1941, American public opinion made that impossible. Two cables were sent to Hawaii, one via radio, the other via the FBI's undersea land line. The reason Pearl Harbor succeeded is the same one that allowed September 11th to succeed. It was unexpected and improbable.

Nobody believed the Japanese navy could steam with four aircraft carriers and its accompanying escorts, 12,000 miles across the Northern Pacific ocean and catch the American navy asleep at Pearl Harbor. The cables were of a war warning, specifically thought to be for the Philippines. If Japan HAD concentrated on that territory, odds are the American naval response to the destruction of Cavete Naval Base, would not have been to sail 12,000 miles with our fleet (although Mac promised the troops it was coming - false - we didn't have the men, ships or equipment to salvage the Philippines), and his surprise on December 8th of losing his entire air defense, would result in the loss of the Philippines, the Bataan Death March, and is considered by such stalwart American General's as Eisenhower and Patton in later writings, as treason.

If the two war cables sent to Hawaii had been taken seriously, and the American fleet scrambled - we could have caught the Japanese carriers at sea, without resupply, and the entire Pacific War might have been over in 72-hours or less. Underestimating Japan's war resolve was the mistake - something the entire American political and military community did, ignoring that nation's history of surprise attacks on other nation's.

MacArthur ended up both a hero and a goat in history. His military record in World War II is flawless, if one ignores the attack on the Philippines on December 8th. His civilian administration of Japan and its inclusion in the Western Democracies of nations, eliminating the Shogun war culture of generations, is amazing and probably his finest achievement, but, he is vainglorious, and so mishandled American troops in Korea, that President Truman sacked him. He never understood his argument wasn't with Harry Truman, it was with the President of the United States, and argument you can't win.

As for General Lee, when questioned by Confederate President Jefferson Davis about leaving Virginia undefended with the huge 90,000 man Union Army of the Potomac camped in the state, while he invaded the north, and the fact that the capital could easily be conquered with his troops absent, Lee's fighting spirit was up, and he remarked "Than we shall swap queens."

Lee knew that a Confederate capture of Washington City, and scattering the Lincoln administration, would have been a death blow to the Union cause and won the South the war. He rolled the dice and lost. The Southern strategy was to just hang on to their territory long enough to cause dissatisfaction with the war in the north, a policy that was working successfully. Lee wanted to hurry that along and it all came crashing down at Gettysburg, ending any Confederate offensive moves for two more years.

It also accomplished the promotion of U.S. Grant to command of the Federal armies, and Grant and Sherman understood what was needed to win the war, destroy Lee's army in detail, which they did. Lee's decisions at Gettysburg were flawed all three days. Failure to take Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill on Day 1, when the Confederate Army had the Union one retreating through the town, and up those heights which would give them the advantage; failure to listen to the calmer heads of General's Longstreet and Hood and push around to the right instead of attacking up the rocky ledges of Devils Den on Day 2, and his suicide attack on Day 3 with Pickett's Division, ended any chance for further Confederate offensives - plus the number of dead at Gettysburg galvanized Lincoln and the northern citizenry, to see the war through to its bloody end. That massive loss of life (54,000 in three days by the two armies), eliminated any chance of a peaceful settlement. Lee was lucky to escape Gettysburg and get the remnants of his army back across the Potomac in 1863 because the Union Army was as wounded at the time as his. However, the public mood changed after Gettysburg, and Grant and Sherman would launch the last full measure to win the war for the Union.........