force of human freedom. and by extending freedom to millions who have not known it we will advance the cause of peace and make america more secure. [applause] some of our men and women in uniform have given their lives in this cause, and others have returned home with terrible injuries. america honors their sacrifice and we will uphold the cause they served. you are the ones who will take up their mantle, and carry on their fight, and ensure the triumph of liberty in the century ahead. you are now part of the greatest force for freedom in the history of the world -- the armed forces of the united states. in the years ahead, you will see dramatic changes taking place

all around you. yet amid all the tumult and change, there is one thing that won't change -- and that is character of our men and women who wear the uniform. this is your generation's moment. your mission is necessary and it is noble. the weapons you use will be more powerful and precise than those available to annapolis graduates who came before you, and you will face enemies they never imagined. but what will make your success possible is the same thing that made their success possible: the courage and honor and personal integrity that you learned at this academy. we're going to give you the tools you'll need to prevail in today's war on terror, and the capabilities you'll need to protect us against the dangers

that may yet emerge. now the task is in your hands, and that means it is in the best of hands. thank you for your courageous decision to serve. bring honor to the uniform security to our country, and peace to the world. and congratulations to every member of the class of 2005. may god bless you. [applause] >> you are watching american history tv all weekend on cspan3 . to join the conversation, like us on his book -- on facebook. >> each week, american artifacts takes viewers to museums and historic sites around the

country. on april 9, 1865, general robert e lee met ulysses s. grant in the village of appomattox courthouse and surrendered his army of northern virginia, effectively ending the civil war. next, we visit the museum of the confederacy in appomattox to see items related to the surrender. we also toured the museum, looking at the war's aftermath. >> welcome to the museum of the confederacy appomattox. i am the site director here. our museum has been open for almost three years now. we are an extension of the museum that was originally founded in 1890, opened in 1896 in richmond. we house a lot of the artifacts that were from the confederates. we will tell you about how we got some of those artifacts. here, we kind of focus on appomattox since we are in this location. one of the things people ask us about is why appomattox?

why did lee come here to surrender? it was not his original intent of course. lee, on his retreat from petersburg, had been looking for supplies. his goal was to find supplies for his men and turn south to meet with general johnston in north carolina. as he is traveling from petersburg, grant had been able to effectively block all the railroad supplies lee has waiting for him. he gets into appomattox court house. that is the name of the village built on a stagecoach road between richmond and lynchburg. “court house” spelled as two words. appomattox as a county was formed in 1845. in virginia, the county seats are always known with the county name and the two words, “court house.” but it was a village that have a

courthouse building in it. lee arrived here on the afternoon of april 8. he deploys some of his artillery in front of him on this road on the way to appomattox station. this is where he has supply trains waiting for him. he sent some of the artillery to a position here and sent men out to unload the supply trains. while they are unloading these trains, they are surprised by general custer's cavalry, who captures the supply trains and some of the men. some of them escape and start heading back towards the court house village, where the main army is. when they are in this area where the artillery troops are the federal army has caught up to them. this was one of the two battles in appomattox. this was known as the battle of one appomattox station. the only battle in the civil war fought between federal cavalry units and confederate artillery units.

no infantrymen involved. the federal cavalry can overrun artillery positions quickly. so they are all retreating to the appomattox court house village. the next morning, lee sends more troops to be able to take the trains. he believes that his infantrymen and the troops that he has can overtake a cavalry unit in the area and get back the supply trains. about 7:30 in the morning, another battle begins in the area when lee discovers that the general and his army have arrived overnight with plenty of federal reinforcements. they have effectively cut off lee's approach to the supply trains. the battle only last until about 10:30 in the morning, when general lee sends a message to general grant, telling him he is ready to surrender his army. you will notice here the bridge.

the bridge is highbridge, going from farmville to appomattox. it crossed the appomattox river. this photograph was taken in august of 1865, when they were doing final repairs to the bridge after the war. we are going into the gallery. i will show you some of the items we have. some of them were specific to appomattox. our collection is very broad very deep. we have a lot of interesting things to share with you as well. this sword is one of our outstanding pieces. this was general lee's dress sword given to him by a marylander. that is all we know about it. he worked in his formal portraits he wore it in dress , appearances and the day he

surrender to general grant because he was in his dress uniform. he did not know what was going to happen to him personally that day. he knew he was surrendering his army but did not know what was going to happen to him. the sword has a myth that comes with it. not too long after the surrender, writers started saying things like grant asked for his sword or lee offered his sword, grant refused it. those were strictly myths. both grant and lee tried to dispel those rumors when they started cropping up, that lee did not ever surrender his sword. grant never requested his sword. this, in grant's words, is the “purest romance.” it was just a myth. it never happened. the museum of the confederacy was founded in 1890 and opened as a museum in 1896 in richmond. our collection was gathered by a group of women who were prominent in each state.

they would gather artifacts from veterans or their families to add to our collection in richmond. this flag is an army of northern virginia battle flag and is one of over 500 we have in our collection, the world's largest collection of confederate flags. on the top, there is a stencil ed number, 384. this signifies this was a captured battle flag. during the war, if a federal soldier captured a confederate flag and turned it into the war department, he was awarded a medal of honor. the war department would stencil these numbers on it as part of their records, noting who captured it, the date, all the pertinent information. after the war in 1905, president teddy roosevelt came to visit our museum in richmond. when he was there, he noted the pride the women had in the

collection. he went back to washington and made it possible for the war department to return the flags to the states from which they originally came. if it was identified as a texas flag, it was given to texas. the virginia flags were given to the confederate museum, as we were called then. there was not a historical society in virginia or a library in virginia that existed at that time so they were returned to us. after the war department went through the process and dispersed all the flags it could identify, it had 200 left. in turn, it turned those over to the confederate museum for safekeeping. that is how our collection came to be that large. this particular case talks about the overland campaign. this is when lee and grant began to face each other in 1864. you will notice there are

photographs of the men with the artifacts. we have put a picture, a face to the artifacts so you can get a personal connection to the men and the items you are looking at, not just an article. for example, this one of general john bell hood. if you look at the uniform and then look at his photograph, you will see that is the same uniform he is wearing there in that particular photograph. the same with general cleburne's uniform. this is the uniform he was wearing when he was killed at the battle of franklin in 1864. it is also the one he is wearing in the photograph there. some of that is battle damage, but most of it is insect damage. it's the first we have been able to display it on a slant board

like this so people can see it. it is the first it has ever been on display since his family gave it to us. his family did not want to give it to us because they were embarrassed about the condition it was in, thinking we would not want anything like this area but there are such few artifacts that remain of patrick clayburgh that this is a important piece to have of him. the graphic here depicts the surrender of some of lee's army at the battle of sailor's creek. welee lost about one third of his army at the battle. after that battle, general grant initiates a conversation with general lee by messenger telling him he does not want anymore bloodshed, asking lee to surrender his army. over the next few days, they continue the correspondence. lee says he does not want the bloodshed, but it is not yet time to surrender the army. they continue in this correspondence up to the battle

of appomattox court house on the morning of april 9, when general lee sends a final message to grant, telling him he is ready to surrender the army. that is the last battle on april 9. there are two images i would like to tell you about. in d is an aide to general lee wounded in appomattox on april 9. lee noted he left him writhing in great pain and assumed he died. in fact, he survived. he posed for this picture with his uniform that showed where the bullet passed through his coat. that is a bullet that was recovered from him. he was operated on by a union surgeon who saved his life and he continued to live after the war. the gentleman in f is sergeant

robert parker. he was with the second virginia cavalry. on that morning, he was also engaged in a battle in appomattox. he is known as lee's last casualty. sergeant parker was wounded and passed away at the will robertson house. he was the last man in lee's army to die before he sent the message he was ready to surrender. sergeant parker was only 40 miles away from his hometown at the time he passed away. another item that we have of what lee wore the day he surrendered to grant is the gauntlet and a pen he used to accept the terms of surrender. this coat was given to us by his son. when he gave it to us, he told

us this was the one he was wearing the day he surrendered. we know these were the gauntlets he had that day. the pen was used to sign the acceptance. a lot of people do not know that general lee and general grant never signed the same piece of paper. when they met at the maclean house on april 9, they had a cordial meeting. lee asked grant to set his terms of surrender on paper. he had heard them in general a p days before as they had been corresponding but he asked him , to write down his particular terms of surrender, which grant did. he gave it to lee to read. lee made a couple corrections to it and gave it back to general grant. he wrote his letter of acceptance of those particular terms. lee signed his own letter, but they never signed the same piece of paper. there is no formal peace treaty

originated on this. there was no document ever signed between the president lincoln and president davis, ending any of this. it was just lee surrendering to his army to general grant at this particular time. in this particular case, there are a lot of uniforms and flags that pertain specifically to appomattox. these were on the men that were here with them. the flags that are here are ones that were captured or surrendered in appomattox. the museum has started a flag conservation program. these flags are perfect examples of that. we have been able to have the flags conserved so they will not deteriorate any further. it is an expensive process that can cost $20,000 to $30,000. we have been fortunate that some of our supporters have stepped forward to help us. some of them might have had ancestors that fought for a particular unit, so it is personal to them.

we have a lot of flags that have not been conserved that we cannot display. we do have some in a system that we can display them in, some of the drawers that i will show you. we have 59 flags surrendered or captured at appomattox. not all of them are in the condition of the ones we looked at earlier that have been conserved. a lot of them look like this. this is obviously one that has probably souvenir damage done to it, taken as they were unfurling the flags on april 12, turning them in for the last time. a lot of men tore off pieces to take home with them as souvenirs. this particular flag, not quite as much damage. you can see some of the stars are missing from it. some of the men took those home with them as souvenirs.

the flag we have in this last case on the bottom is one that does not have any damage other than wear and tear of 150 years. this was carried by sergeant david lowery. he refused to surrender his flag at the surrender ceremony. he folded it up. he wrapped it around his body, put his uniform on top of it and walked home with it. he kept it on an easel in his parlor and it remained there until he passed away. the flag was given to us by his daughter. that was the story she told us. in the fall of the first year we opened in 2012, his great-granddaughter came to visit this flag and told us the same story handed down in her family. that he had brought it home with him this way, kept it on an easel in the parlor. he kept it with him at all times. the battle flags that the men followed into battle were very significant for them. the color bearer was a target

for the enemy. they felt that if they shot down the color bearer, it would morally defeat that particular unit. color bearers were particularly -- usually very courageous. these flagstaffs were all surrendered in appomattox. some of them are nicely turned pieces of wood. some of them are just tree branches. they are making do with whatever they have. when lee surrendered to general grant, he surrendered only his army of northern virginia. he did not surrender any other armies, although grant had asked him to. there was over 100,000 soldiers still in the field. appomattox was just the first surrender, but certainly not the last surrender that ended the war. but effectively, it did. one of the larger armies in the field was joe johnston's army in

north carolina. it had been lee's goal to meet general johnston. after he supplied the troops, combine armies, and continue on in the effort. general johnston surrendered his troops about three weeks after lee surrendered. the portrait, the spurs the gauntlets, the sash, and this chest all belonged to joseph johnston. the last surrender on land was by brigadier general stan wadde. we do not have any of his items other than a portrait of him. but he is notable because he was a cherokee. he surrendered his men, who were mostly native american, in the oklahoma territory in june of 1865. that was the last surrender of confederate troops on land. the last surrender of any confederate flag occurred in

november of 1865 in liverpool, england. the shenandoah had been a raiding ship. a very successful one. it was operating off the coast of the aleutian islands when it got word that the war had ended. the captain did not want to put into any u.s. port because he and his men would have been hanged as pirates. that is what they were. so they sailed all the way around south america, back up to great britain to liverpool which is where the ship had been made. they surrendered their flag quietly and went back home. the map shows some other places where people went after the war. about 10,000 former confederate soldiers were given land grants by the emperor of brazil to come down and establish a colony. these men were known as confederatos. about 3000 remained, 7000 came

back. it is difficult to establish new lands. there are still descendents that live in brazil now. peru, belize, mexico, were also places where soldiers had gone. african-americans, some of them went back to liberia, which was a country that had been created for them with the idea of them going back to their native lands to reestablish colonies there. it was not very successful. only about 4000 african-americans went there. a much larger number went to kansas after reconstruction, about 15,000, to establish life on farms there in kansas. some of the soldiers also became mercenaries or worked for other armies. in egypt, a lot of them went to join fighting there.

some of the coats show alterations that soldiers made to them after the war. this one has buttons covered and shows no insignia. u.s. army regulations required them to remove any insignia and military buttons if they were going to continue to wear them. other modifications we see to things, to coats, there were shortages in the south. clothing was very valuable. this is one example where a woman has taken her husband's coat and cut it down to make an overcoat for her son to wear. this is our wall of faces that shows nearly 100 men and women , african american and white and tells their stories on the screens. what happened to them during the war and what happened after the war.

one of the people is elizabeth van lew. she lived in richmond and she was a union spy. she was very wealthy. but she wanted to help union soldiers. she was down at libby prison passing messages back and forth. after the war, she was appointed postmistress of richmond by president grant. after she passed away, her home was torn down by the people of richmond. they did not have the same opinion of her as president grant did. this is an image of judah benjamin, the first jewish cabinet officer in the u.s. he served as secretary of war and secretary of state for the confederate states of america. another image is related to some of the people that live here in appomattox today. this is nancy martin. she was born a slave, about two or three years old when lee surrendered.

she became free. she grew up to be a midwife. she was a very good midwife. if you were expecting a child, you called nancy martin, regardless of whether you were african-american or white. according to reverend jones, who gave us this image, his great great grandmother, nancy martin, had her own wall of faces. she always had a portrait made of herself with every child she brought into the world. we also have a death mask of robert e. lee. after lee left appomattox in 1865, he returned to richmond to his wife. they moved to lexington, where he was president of washington college for the next five years. he passed away in 1870, five years after his surrender. this is one of the death masks. the image behind him is an image

of appomattox court house. the village. you can see the ruins of the burned out courthouse, taken after 1892, when it burned. it had been the county seat up until that point. as we showed you on the map before, this village was built on the stagecoach line. the railroad line did not come through the village. it was a few miles away, where lee was trying to get to. after this courthouse burned, they built a new courthouse and moved the county seat to where it exists today, near the railroad station in the town of appomattox. this gallery focuses on the confederate veterans. many of them were wounded during the war and lost limbs. some of them had prosthetic limbs like this made. when this was given to us, the gentleman said he did not wear

it very often. his grandkids probably played with it more often than he wore it. another example is this hat worn by sergeant duckett. you can see there is a hole in it. he put the patch on it himself. there is a photograph of him wearing that with where a bullet grazed him during a battle. it came that close to ending his life and took out a big chunk of his hat. when the men came back from the war, they were significantly changed. a lot of times, those boys had not been outside of their own county. now, they traveled to different states and seen the horrific effects of the war. a lot of them came back with physical wounds, an eye missing, an arm missing, but when they came back, they tried to reclaim their lives. a lot of them were farmers. some went into politics. they were seen as war heroes, so it was easy for them to run on

platforms and become elected officials in their home communities. but some of these men were radically different than when they had left. a lot of these conditions they did not understand. this is a time when we do not understand bacteria and germs let alone the psychological issues the men were finding. in journals, they referred to this condition as "soldier's heart," because it often came along with a heart condition. today, we call it posttraumatic stress disorder. they did not understand it at the time. there were high rates of alcoholism after the war. high rates of suicide also, as the men tried to deal with what they had seen during that time period without the benefits of counseling or understanding what was going on. very similar to what we see with veterans today. like i said previously, the men were not permitted to wear their

uniforms after the war was over. but yet, the men wanted to get together and have reunions. they designed this confederate veteran uniform available for $7.50 that you will see in a lot of the reunion photographs we have here. most of the reunions we see in these images were just of either confederate veterans or union veterans with their own particular unit. there were a few reunions held with troops from the north and south. there were not as many, but they were given wide publicity. these were two punch bowls made to signify one of those reunions in the 1880's between the north and south. throughout the south, many veterans' homes became organized as places where veterans could live if they had no one at home to care for them.

some of the examples were from the veterans home in richmond, virginia. this veteran was celebrating his 103rd birthday. one of the things they did at this particular home as a fundraiser was carve furniture out of cigar boxes. one day, i was taking some of our board members on a tour, and they were admiring this and commented that they used to have dollhouse furniture just like this as a child. but then their mother took it away from them because she was saying they were going to break it. as they were looking at it and admiring the furniture, start reading the label and see who it was donated by, it was their parents. this was thereir dollhouse furniture that was taken away from them as a child, now appearing in a museum.