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At least read Wikipedia on basics like the Civil War!. Not much Wikipedia in sources!.

What you did at home depending on whether home was invaded or not!. Battles were fought all over the South, a few states in" the North" and the conflict reached as far as California!.

First, let's dispose of Appomattox Courthouse, a tiny crossroads town, now a historical park, that was bypassed by the Southside railroad which went through a town aptly named Appomattox Station, a bit two or three miles further west!.

That's where the last two battles in Virginia during the Civil War were fought and it's where Robert E!. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S!. Grant, AKA Unconditional Surrender Grant!. The surrender at the Wilmer McLean house did not actually end the war in a formal sense, but it was the end!.

Lee and his Army skedaddled from Richmond on April 3, 1865 after Grant's Army battered down the city's defenses!. By then, Sherman had already marched through Georgia and the last major Confederate Army was destroyed in Tennessee!. The Confederacy west of the Mississippi collapsed slowly!. The Battle of Palmito Ranch, really an idiotic skirmish ordered by a Union martinet, killed men more than a month after ACH!. General Kirby Smith surrendered the "trans-Mississippi" forces on May 26, 1865 then ran for Mexico for feat of being hanged for treason!. Historians differ about "last battle," but the last general battle was probably Columbus, GA on April 19 with a surrender two days later!. President Johnson declared the war over on May 9, 1865!.

A few more people died anyway and the CSS Shenandoah fired its last shot on June 22 in the Arctic Ocean where it was conducting legalized piracy against whalers and commercial ships!. It stayed at sea until November, 1865 but Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House was effectively the end of the war!. The deaths after Appomattox were the result of delays in getting the news, much like the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812!. It takes a little time to wind down the war machine!.

Confederate veterans went home after Appomattox and either struggled to live if they were poor or began the first Ku Klux Klan terrorist campaign against former slaves who thought they were free!. A decade after the war ended, the Republicans made a deal to let the former Confederates have their way with black codes and oppression!. They got the White House for another term!.

In the final days of the war, Lee was desperate to get to the railroad at Appomattox Station where there were seven supply trains waiting!. An Army marches on its stomach and his army had empty stomachs!. You have to imagine what it's like to march 90 miles on foot in five days without good shoes surrounded by thousands of others with all of you knowing that you've been defeated even if not yet surrendered!.

Lee sent an advance guard and made camp near ACH on April 8th, 1865!. Remember a large army on foot doesn't all get there at the same time, even one that was being whittled down by constant fighting, desertion, illness and malingering!.

But while his army was pitching tents, General Phil Sheridan's cavalry moved ahead of his infantry and captured the vital supply trains and dispersed the advance guard!. Lee misunderestimated Grant!. Grant knew that Lee had supplies waiting and had flung all of his calvary units out front a and force marched his troops in pursuit of Lee!.

Lee, who thought his army close to collapse in February, exchanged letters with Grant starting on April 7 about possible terms!. During the early morning of April 9, 1865, he decided to attack!. At 9 a!.m!. about 10,000 Confederate infantry and calvary attacked dismounted cavalry with two cannon!. Lee thought h could sweep them aside and resume a march on the road to Lynchburg!. Initial success quickly went sour as more cavalry and then fast marching infantry arrived!. By 11 a!.m!. it was all over but the formalities!. Lee wrote to Grant and asked for a meeting!. Grant received it about noon!. The McLean House at ACH was chosen!. Lee arrived at 1 p!.m!. in dress uniform!. Grant arrived after a hard ride in a muddy field uniform a half an hour later!. They exchanged pleasantries and regrets, then they moved to the surrender!.

Lee had no choice!. The Confederate Army (of Northern Virginia) was blocked from escape by a reinforced Army of the James!. The Army of the Potomac was also moving in for the kill!. Three corps of infantry arrived that morning at the front with more following!. Grant had closed the ring!. There would be no escape!. Confederate soldiers began to wander off!. By the time their Army stacked its arms, there were fewer than 27,000!. Officers stood good for the surrender of their men and their commitment to stop fighting!.

The exchanges between Lee and Grant offer excellent grounding!. http://www!.civilwarhome!.com/grantlee!.htm

Lee's delay in accepting the inevitable cost another 500 casualties, dead or wounded in two battles in the area!. The terms he accepted were those initially offered by Grant on the 8th!. By then, another 500 men had been killed or wounded!.

The irony was that the first major battle of the war, First Bull Run or First Manassas had been fought on McLean's farm!. (Confederate and Union Generals took a different approach to naming battles)!.

Forget the silly stuff about support the troops!. People always "support the troops" even in bad or idiotic wars!. The Germans supported their Army and few countries could have been more wrong in two wars!. The people at home are usually happiest when they come home in one piece and if they don't, they'd rather we take care of them!.

The bigger the war, the more people support them because then it's not abstract!. It's their children, brothers, cousins and sometimes parents!. But how much can you support the troops other than good wishes when you're starving, trying to keep a farm and family together!.

The romantic version of the war has fine women getting vapors and fainting, then doing bandages for the troops!. The truth is much more malign!. Plantations in the South suffered, but they kept their slaves, their overseers and fairly often most of the menfolks!. If you didn't want to be in the Army, you could hire a soldier in your place!. They got the right to die for you!.

There are few better examples of the stark truth of "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight!." On both sides!.

In the North, riots against the draft broke out in a number of cities!. Newspapers critical of the war found themselves with smashed presses!. To get wounded was sometimes worse than being killed outright!. Surgeons of the time sawed off arms and legs without painkillers!. Wounds frequently became infected and an infection known as gangrene might kill you in hours or force the removal of a limb to stop the infection from spreading, but you might still die!.

The rich became richer!. Wilmer McLean, the grocer whose home hosted the surrenders, claimed he moved because he was peaceloving!. Actually he was a smuggler who made a fortune selling illegal sugar at outrageous prices!. Unfortunately, he took too much of his payment in Confederate money!.

The merchants of greed sold rotten beef and rancid butter to the Union Army and peddled prostitutes when they could!. In the South, blockade runners made enormous profits and the wiser insisted on gold or foreign currency!. Their money made merchants in other ports rich on the spoils of war!. The Confederacy traded cotton for ships illegally built in Britain or France that then engaged in terrorism at sea against non-combatants!. Southern captains commanded, but the crews were sometimes not American at all, but hired in Britain for a piece of the spoils!.

In the South, the draft relentlessly swept up men from their farms and families and at the end, they were forcing service from children in their mid-teens and geezers as old as 60!. Women left along while their men were at war not only had to keep the farm together, they had to beg salt from a state ration to use as a preservative for ham and whatever meat they could raise!. When the Army came, and eventually it would, they would destroy the crops they didn't eat and slaughter the animals the same way!. The rich could ride away until the storm passed!. Poorer people watched the war destroy their families!. Children went hungry!. Women were broken in health and more than a few turned to prostitution, if they were young enough!.

Soldiers left their homes, some forever, others for month after month of service!. A bitter defeat was made worse when troops organized by home town or county was tossed into a particularly bad meatgrinder!. The casualty lists would include brothers, cousins and all manner of relations!. In some Southern towns, almost all of the free white men were killed and others wounded!. In the North with its city-bred troops, entire neighborhoods could be devastated by the losses of a single battle!. Newspapers in the major cities could not print all the names of all the dead, sometimes not even for that one city!.

At the end, so many white men had been killed or maimed that the South talked about raising black troops from their slaves!. The Union did put "colored" troops into action, an act that contributed to a war crime known as the Fort Pillow Massacre!. A few African-Americans from the South did go to war, a few as valets and fewer as soldiers!. Whites lived in fear of slave revolts and for all the romantic notions, few slaves would resist the lure of a Union army to set them free!. The role of black troops fighting for the South is justified by people who claim freedom ruined the former slaves and caused white racism, disconnecting slavery from black poverty There is no good war!.Only lies!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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During the later half of the 19th century, non-combatants did not have an organizations or civic ativities to show support for their troops!. They demonstrated it by being active in the war effort by providing medical aid, housing, food, weapons and in some instances intelligence!.

As for a conclusion at Appomattox, I am not aware of any!.
That was the site that chosen for the two commanding generals to meet, so that Lee could surrender to Grant!.
The war had cost both sides dearly and to continue the fight would have completely destroyed them!.

It use to be a custom that the defeated commander had to surrender his sword as a symbol of their defeat!. At the Appomattox courthouse however when Lee surrendered to Grant!. Grand did not ask for Lee's sword because Lee was not completely defeated!. I gues both men knew that niether side could exist without the other!. The Northern states had the industry and schools, whereas the southern states had the raw materials to send to the northern industries!.

I hope that this helps!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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Well, families often sent food and personal possessions to their soldiers!. In addition, women were often seen working in the fields up north, while their sons and husbands were off fighting in the south!.

Some, including Louisa May Alcott, volunteered to work at hospitals treating the sick!. She wrote an interesting account of her work there, you may be able to find a copy online somewhere!.

Clara Barton was a nurse, and founder of the American Red Cross!.

At Appomattox, Lee met Grant at the McLean house, and signed the instrument of surrender!. This was the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, other armies were surrendered at different times!. The story is that the table the surrender was signed upon was given by General Sheridan to George Custer as a gift for his wife Libby!. I've never heard if the McLeans' were paid for it or not!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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Clara Barton was a nurse in the civil war!.
The Appomattox court house was where the surrender of the Confederate Army under Robert E!. Lee to Union commander Ulysses S!. Grant took place on April 9, 1865, effectively ending the American Civil War!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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During the Civil War, the women used to save their urine for the nitrates, to make gun powder!. No joke!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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They got their live stock taken by soldiers of both sides!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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