Book description
On April 8, 1865, after four years of civil war, General Robert E. Lee wrote to General Ulysses S. Grant asking for peace. Peace was beyond his authority to negotiate, Grant replied, but surrender terms he would discuss. As Gregory Downs reveals in this gripping history of post-Civil War America,…
Why read it?
1 author picked After Appomattox as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I know the author personally and had a chance to read portions of the manuscript before it went to press. It is by far the best account of the occupation of the former Confederacy by the U.S. Army during Reconstruction. Meticulously researched, it gives readers a firm sense of where the military was and when, as well as how it was forced to confront insurgent white Southerners determined to obstruct advances in equal rights through whatever means possible, including violence. That intransigence caused increases in military supervision of governments, leading the author to state, “Military Reconstruction therefore exposed the necessary…
From William's list on racial violence and more in the post-Civil War South.
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