they die here at appomattox. it is the effective end of the civil war and a great achievement to end the war. this notion of a narrative about a gentleman's agreement exists from the very start and even some of these editors like really who were arguing about the terms. there's an air self-congratulation that america ended at civil war and away no country is ever done so before. the gentleman's agreement is rooted in american exceptionalism, how remarkable we are able to end our war without massive executions and reprisals. across the spectrum that impulse to self-congratulation says president, even among people who than express will argue about what the terms really meant. my argument here is nothing that will set clearly on a billboard. i don't think one has to throw out the old billboard so much as remember that the surrender was controversial. how could it not be? 700,000 men have lost their lives. the road to true reconciliation was a very, very difficult one. i think to appreciate the meaning of the surrend

appomattox, the last clash of grant and lee at the end of the desperate chase from be is work to appomattox, lee's army had tried on the morning of april april 9th to break free of the federal trap only to find its last escape route blocked by a black soldiers. blues six regiments with one other way in the wings. when they heard of the capitulation of black troops exultation knew no bounds. they shouted, danced, sang, and embraced each other. the black regiments at appomattox numbering 2,000 men in all or a microcosm of black life in america including sex slave straightneck and techies can nelson and free blacks trained at philadelphia's camp william penn. race leaders such as the renowned historian george washington williams and the baptist editor william j. simmons, the journalistic mentor to none other than item b. wells. for all of these soldiers regardless of background, their presence on the battlefield was the culmination of a long struggle. the federal army initially turned away by volunteers claiming that african-american men did not the debt tapis the attributes of patriotism and

here in the modest central virginia ament of appomattox court house. lee war of fine dress uniform and embody the prod gentility of the south's planter elite. grant dressed casually in a much better uniform representing the hardscrabble farmers and wage earners. after awkwardly is changing some pleasantries about their service in the mexican war the two men agreed to the surrender terms

there was a transition which was right after -- days after -- it's hard to imagine -- days after appomattox. days after the war, and some in the south were actually still fighting. they didn't want to stop fight, and andrew johnson is the next president, and a lot of knee. congress, called the radical republicans, they looked to johnson and thought johnson would be a good guy and one of them, would actually implement the social policies that so many people had fought for, and they were sadly mistaken in him as it turned out, and in fact johnson was almost impeached, just about a couple years later. so, it was a very rocky transition in this particular case, not because the government didn't work, but because you're just coming out of a dreadful, horrific war. >> that's the theme that i came to recognize in my book as well, that all of these things we see as inevitable, whether it's the revolution, the rise of george washington, lincoln's indispensability, all this stuff. once you get in it, as i know you do in your book, you begin to realize how messy everything was. there was no sense of d

lee surrendered to grant at appomattox in 1865, that by itself did not actually end of the war because there were several other confederate generals in the field, and lee spoke only for the army of north virginia. the great fear of grant and other late including it into at this point is still alive was the confederate army would disband and would engage in guerrilla warfare from the mountains for us are in the future as anybody could see. in fact, that's exactly what the ku klux klan became. and the ku klux klan did its best to keep african-americans and white republican supporters from exercising the rights they were supposedly guaranteed under the 14th and 15th amendments. for grant persuaded congress to give him extraordinary powers to extend habeas corpus for the state authorities could not enforce the law. this was a huge -- it was a huge reach by the federal government. because the federal government did not enforce laws in those days. the states enforce laws but when the state systematically did not defend the right tom supposedly guaranteed under the constitution, then congress

lee vendorred at -- surrendered at appomattox. there were three black regiments. in fact, i went down there looking for my great grandfather's unit, the 116th, an all-slave unit from kentucky. there was the 116th, and i tipped my hat to my great grandfather, but there next to the 116th was the 29th illinois and the 31st new york. and i said, boy, how could they miss the 29th in this chapter? especially since they were writing in the late '30s, and the last of the civil war soldiers usually referred to as old soldier or soldier, they were living as late as the 1920 -- i have papers showing them appealing pension decisions from washington. be i don't know how they missed it, but they did. everything else in the chapter is very enlightening, but this to -- omission sort of strikes hard because it was the most momentous -- >> well, christopher, are you saying that brian should have rewritten the chapters? >> no. >> well, that the chapters have to be critiqued by those of us who use them. >> that's what i'm saying. >> okay. >> this is my buddy from kent state, by the w

of doing research, which was something i knew little about, i kept running across references to appomattox is a freedom day for african-americans. references that dated to the 1930s. the symbolic importance of the place for african-americans persist a really, really long time. sometimes it took the form from chris this out maddux, covering the spectrum of african-american military service is eventually does lease for the world wars of the one. but it really lingers as a moment of symbolic importance. it goes beyond things that casualties in who in fact fired glass shards. [inaudible] >> thank you very much. >> my pleasure. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [laughter]