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Smith: Remembering our greatest war
CHATTANOOGA AREA EVENTS
* "An Ending Not Fondly Imagined: Forging New Lives at the End of the Civil War" What: Caravan tour around the battlefield exploring the hardships faced by soldiers, civilians and former slaves after the end of the Civil War. Where: Chickamauga Battlefield, Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, Fort Oglethorpe, Ga. When: April 18, 2-4 p.m. Cost: Free * "Civil War Cruise: Chattanooga, Spring 1865" What: Historian Jim Ogden talks about the impact of the Civil War on Chattanooga aboard the River Gorge Explorer Where: Tennessee Aquarium, Chattanooga When: Sunday, April 19, 10 a.m.-noon Cost for aquarium members: Adults, $24; children 12 and under, $18 Cost for non-members: Adults, $32; children 12 and under, $24.50 * 2015 Tennessee Civil War Sesquicentennial Signature Event: Reconstruction Tennessee What: Official state events celebrating the sesquicentennial of the last year of the Civil War, including the Blue & Gray Reunion and Jubilee; how to access the Library of Congress' Civil War collections via its website; opportunity to have personal Civil War manuscripts, photographs digitally replicated to add to a public archive online. Where: East Tennessee Historical Society, 601 S. Gay St., Knoxville; Knoxville Convention Center, 525 Henley St., Knoxville. When: April 30-May 1 Website: http://www.tncivilwar150.com
On this day 150 years ago, having received news of a checkmate for which he had no counter-move, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee sent word to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to initiate terms for the surrender of his 28,000-man Army of Northern Virginia.
Over the years, many have come to regard the formal surrender, which took place in a house in the village of Appomattox Court House, Va., as marking the end of the Civil War.
Jim Ogden, historian at the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, says that's not entirely accurate.
"Today, Appomattox is looked at as this hard-line ending to the Civil War, but Lee made it clear he was only surrendering his force, the Army of Northern Virginia," Ogden said. "Over the next six weeks, other Confederate forces in North Carolina and west of the Mississippi also surrendered."
Still, the Confederacy was in dire straits at that time. According to Ogden, the Union broke Confederate lines at Petersburg, Va., allowing it to advance to the Confederate capital of Richmond and causing Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet to flee. Though Appomattox didn't officially end the war, Ogden acknowledged that Lee's surrender can be viewed as a symbolic death knell of the Confederacy.
"By 1863, most Southerners had tied their hopes of an independent Confederate States of America to Lee's Army of Northern Virginia," Ogden said. "The surrender was a huge blow to the morale of the Southern people."
A steady trickle of Confederate surrenders began as news from Appomattox spread. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, commander of the Army of Tennessee and the Carolinas, began surrendering to Gen. William T. Sherman on April 18 near Durham, N.C.
Lt. Gen. Richard Taylor surrendered his 12,000-strong Department of Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana force at Citronelle, Ala., on May 4. Jefferson Davis was captured May 10 in Irwinville, Ga., and the last major Confederate force, the Trans-Mississippi Department, laid its weapons down in New Orleans on May 26.
Over the next several months, the South would begin the slow process of rebuilding. Chattanooga, a strategic hub that was the site of skirmishes between 1862 and 1863, didn't have as difficult a recovery as other cities in the South, said local attorney and Civil War historian/author Sam Elliott.
Given the city's small size at the time [the population was around 2,500] and the fact that it didn't suffer the significant shelling that others did [the major battles skirted the city], Chattanooga was a prime post-war candidate for growth because of its location on the Tennessee River and its Union-built infrastructure, Elliott said.
"A lot of Northerners came down to take advantage of the industrial base that the army had built and no longer needed," he said. "The government sold off the rail lines and foundries to industrialists for a song."
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Today, many in Chattanooga celebrate the area's Civil War legacy.
The region abounds with historians, collectors and re-enactors. Tourist groups large and small make pilgrimages to area battle sites, from the less conspicuous monuments of Orchard Knob and Missionary Ridge to Lookout Mountain's Point Park and Fort Oglethorpe's Chickamauga Battlefield.
Chattanooga Convention and Visitors Bureau spokeswoman Candace Davis said the bureau doesn't keep specific numbers on the economic impact of tourist attractions on the city. But she said the Civil War sites -- particularly the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, which receives about a million visitors annually -- are undoubted tourist draws.
"The Civil War sites are definitely a great part of the overall Chattanooga experience," Davis said. "Whether or not you're here specifically for the Civil War Trail signs or the battle sites, it's still cool to learn about that history while you're here."
On Wednesday, Mike Kreger and his 16-year-old twin sons Charles and Daniel were visiting Point Park. The Kregers are Civil War re-enactors from Maryland. With his sons on spring break, Kreger decided to take a long-awaited trip to the area's pivotal battle sites.
"We were at Chickamauga earlier today, and it was beautiful," he said. "It's good to walk the ground."
Kreger said he hoped that people in this area take pride in the history, regardless of sides or how the war turned out.
"This is everybody's heritage," he said. "The people that fought this war were all Americans, many of them fathers and sons, brothers. It was such a pivotal point for our country and our democracy. There are legacies of the war that are continuing, but look at the changes since then. We're not on the brink of war with ourselves."
Sesquicentennial "signature" events commemorating every year of the Civil War have been happening in Tennessee since 2010. That year the event was held in Nashville, to acknowledge Lincoln's election in 1860. The next three were held at sites of major battles -- Cookeville, Shiloh and, in 2013, Chattanooga.
This year's events will be held from April 30-May 1 at different locations in Knoxville. Commemorative events also are happening this weekend near Petersburg and Richmond, Va.
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Walden, Tenn., resident Will Greene serves as executive director of the Pamplin Historical Park in Virginia. Pamplin is where Union forces broke Lee's lines on April 2 after a 292-day siege, leading to the evacuation of Richmond and the eventual surrender at Appomattox.
Greene said the park commemorated the week with talks, presentations and tours, including a real-time tour of the April 2 attack.
"We walked the actual attack route in the pre-dawn hours, complete with re-enactors," he said. "It was quite a moving experience."
Greene said the sesquicentennial celebrations have been a moderate success, though they have received little help from the federal government and state support has varied. That's unfortunate, he said, because there are so many lessons we can still learn from this war.
Like Appomattox, for example.
"There's a welcome sign when you get to Appomattox that says, 'Where our nation reunited," he said. "In reality, it's not quite that simple. It took many years for the hostilities to dissipate in this country. I don't think we should romanticize what happened at Appomattox, but that said, it was a good first step, with many more to follow."
Contact Will Healey at whealey@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6731.