The South As It Is: 1865–1866

Chapter 7

VI I LIBERTY, VA., August 17, 1865 THE little village of Appomattox Court-House, distant from Lynchburg about twenty-five miles, is situated on low ground at the source of the Appomattox River, and in a district devoted exclusively to farming. It is, therefore, small even among Virginian towns, containing, besides the court-house and a jail in ruins, only some twenty or thirty buildings, mostly the dwellings of farmers; but small as it is, no other collection of houses in all the county so well ml!rits the name of town. It boasts one hotel and one country store, the stock of goods in the latter sadly needing to be replenished . During the time of my visit, both of these buildings were pretty constantly occupied by men who seemed to have no other business on their hands than to lounge in some easy attitude chewing tobacco and talking to each other, or watching across the muddy road and pools of rain water the movements of the soldiers quartered opposite in the court-house yard. In the country parts of Virginia I have seen at one time and another hundreds of white men, and I doubt if I have seen in all more than ten men engaged in labor of any sort. At the store or tavern of every village just such a group of idlers is sure to be found. In accounting for these assemblages, the fact that apple brandy is always for sale by the glass at such places can hardly be considered a sufficient cause, apple brandy being exceedingly abundant in all this region, as nearly every farmer has a still in operation on his own premises. It is to the custom of the country, which throws all work upon the Negroes, that the general idleness must in great part be attributed, 67 68 John Richard Dennett and in part also, 1 suppose, to the unsettled condition of public and private affairs, which furnishes to every man a wide and fertile field for conjecture and conversation. Within musket-shot of the court-house and the store is the range of low hills where Lee's army was drawn up on the morning of its surrender; on a parallel ridge was the centre of Grant's line of battle; and in the valley between, the town's people point out the spot where the commanders met for conference. It is marked by a deep hole, made by the relic-hunters, who have dug up even the roots of the tree beneath which the generals met. At the invitation of Mr. McLean 1 visited his house, and sat for a while in the parlor where the articles of capitulation were signed. Nearly all the furniture which it then contained has been taken away by people anxious to possess some memento of the famous transaction. Tables, chairs, vases, fans, pens, books, everything small and great that could be removed from the room, were eagerly bought, or appropriated without purchase, by enthusiastic visitors. All the movables were exhausted, while yet the demands of the curiosity-seekers were unsatisfied. The standish which the generals used happened to be overturned, and a splash of ink was left upon the window-seat and wall. Urgent requests were repeatedly made for permission to cut out the stained wood and plaster, but this one remembrancer of the event, it having thus become part and parcel of the real estate, Mr. McLean has been able to keep for himself. His other souvenirs of the war are less pleasing, for they consist chiefly of Negroes set free, lands abandoned , and houses and barns destroyed in the early campaigns. "Yes, sir," he said to me, "I was the alpha and omega of this contest-the beginning and the end. The first battle of Bull Run, as you call it, was fought on my plantation, and it was in my house that General Lee surrendered his army. But my first state was far worse than my last. At the time of the surrender 1 escaped all molestation. 1 could overhear your soldiers saying, 'Well, boys, we can afford to let this old fellow alone; he's seen about enough of it.' It was true; 1 had seen plenty to satisfy me, and 1 may say that 1 was truly thankful that the thing was allover." So far as 1 could The South As It Is: 1865-1866 learn none of the villagers suffered at all in person or property at...