THE GUIDON.
12
I|t0t0nr Appomattox.
ON
the tenth of April, 1905, a monument was unveiled at Appomattox. Almost with one accord the thoughts of the visitors went back to another April day forty years ago, when the sun rose and set on the saddest scene in the history of our Southland the surrender at Appomattox. Here no great battles were fought, although there were many skirmishes around the place. Only one small buryingground is to be found. It has thirteen graves, one of them being a Union soldier. The monument recently erected by North Carolina is the
—
first to
our soldiers at this place, but
may
all
the Southern States
follow her example! It was at Appomattox that Lee, beset and overwhelmed, and without supplies, surrendered the survivors of the grand Army of Northern Virginia to Grant. And thus the great war between the states virtually ended at Appomattox in Virginia. The house in which Lee made terms of surrender is now in At one time it was planned that the house should be ruins. moved to Chicago, but the plan failed. Today we look with sadness upon the pile of bricks and planks surrounded by straggling boxwoods. It was a little way from this house that Lee made his memorable address, spoken to his sorrowing comrades
about to depart for their ravaged, desolate homes.
This parting
benediction to his army, so completely illustrated in his own life and in the loyalty of the South, will forever attest the influence of this great example.
His address reads as follows: Appomattox
C
H., April
10,
1865.
the survivors of so many hard-fought battles, who have remained steadfast to the last, that I have consented to this result from no distrust of them, but feeling that valor and devotion would accom" I need not
tell
plieh nothing that could compensate for the loss that
would have attended