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The End of the Civil War
Jay Winik
The End of the Civil War
Unit 10
W arming up
B ackground
T ext Analysis
R einforcement
The End of the Civil War
Unit 10
Questions/Activities
Check-on Preview
Objectives
Warming up
Warming up
Questions/Activities
1. How did civil wars usually end? Any examples? What about
the Liberation War in China?
2. In what ways was the ending of the American Civil War
unique?
3. According to the author, what made this special ending
possible?
4. In what ways was such an ending significant to the US?
Warming up
Questions/Activities
1. Please make a list of the names of people and places in the
essay and put them into historical context.
2. Was Lee’s decision to surrender easy? Why or why not?
3. What was Lincoln’s vision for the end of the Civil War?
4. How do you interpret Lee’s and Grant’s different ways of
attiring at the Appomattox House?
5. Against what a background did the Bennett House Surrender
take place?
6. Why did the Bennett House Surrender conclude the same way
as the Appomattox Surrender?
Warming up
Check-on Preview
Who’s who and for what?
The Union
1. Abraham Lincoln
a. Union General Commander
2. Ulysses S. Grant
b. US President
3. Andrew Johnson
c. Union Secretary of State
4. William Seward
d. Union General
5. Bill Sherman
e. Vice President
A. Mercy
B. Punishment
C. Not Known
Warming up
Check-on Preview
The Confederacy
Who’s who and for what?
1. Jefferson Davis
a. Commanding General, Moral
Conscience of the South
2. Robert Lee
b. Confederate President
3. Mary Lee
c. Confederate General
4. Joe Johnston
d. Great-granddaughter of Washington
A. Surrender
B. Guerilla Warfare
C. Not Known
Warming up
Objectives
1. Understand the structure of the essay.
2. Understand the uniqueness of the ending of the American
Civil War.
3. Explain the significance of such an ending to America.
4. Understand different historic perspectives.
The End of the Civil War
Author
Background
History
Unit 10
Background
Jay Winik
Author
• Senior scholar of history and public
policy in the School of Public Affairs,
University of Maryland
• Leading historian of the American
Civil War
Background
History
A quiz on the civil war
1. The combatants in the Civil War were the Union (northern
states) against the Confederacy (southern states).

This war had many causes. What do the historians believe to
True or False?
2.
be the primary?
A. Political turmoil
B. Secession
C. Slavery issues
D. States’ rights

Background
3.
4.
5.
6.
History
The North and the South quarreled in the Congress over
whether the newly-acquired states in the west should be
admitted into the union as free states or slave states.
True or False?
The North and the South were much different in its people,
customs and way of life. True or False?
Neither side was really prepared for war. The North had a
small army and the South had none. True or False?
The war would see about 75,000 orphans losing their fathers.
Therefore, memory of the war has lasted for generations.
True or False?




Background
History
Movie & TV Productions
on the Civil War
The End of the Civil War
Unit 10
Theme
Text Analysis
Structure
Detailed
Analysis
Text Analysis
Theme
Questions for thinking
1. In what ways was the ending of the American Civil War unique
in the human history of civil wars?
2. According to the author, was such an ending inevitable or not?
Why or why not?
3. According to the text, what contributed to such a unique ending?
Text Analysis
Structure
I. Purpose and approach (paras. 1-2)
II. The Appomattox Surrender (paras. 3-15)
A. Lee’s decision to surrender (paras. 3-5)
B. Lincoln’s vision (paras. 6-8)
C. The Appomattox Surrender (paras. 9-15)
III. The final surrender (paras. 16-22)
A. Volatile situation after the surrender (paras. 16-19)
B. The Bennett House Surrender (paras. 20-22)
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part I: Discussion
1.
2.
3.
4.
What is the common concern in the study of wars?
What is the author’s research topic/purpose?
Why does the author choose such a topic?
What kind of historic outlook does the author have?
inevitability vs. chance events
5. What kind of approach does the author adopt?
6. What should be the right approach toward history?
7. What is the academic writing like? (para. 1)
research topic (what)
rationale for the topic (why)
approach (how)
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part II (A): Discussion
1. What was the fateful choice facing Robert Lee?
Good citizens with
honor and dignity
vs.
2. What were Lee’s concerns?
Rebels with rage in a
continued civil war
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part II (A): Discussion
Lee raised the dreaded concept of surrender, and he said, “What
will the country think?” (para.4)
And Wise looked over at Lee, and he said, “Country? My God,
man, you are the country to these men.” (para.5)
3. Did Lee and Wise mean the same thing by “the country”? Why
or why not?
4. What if Lee shared Wise’s understanding?
5. How were the different understandings significant to the
ending of the Civil War?
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part II (A): Words & Expressions
be caked with
The surfaces of this living area are always caked with oil stains.
He didn’t look alarmed or frightened, but his forehead was
caked with dirt and blood.
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part II (B): Discussion
1. What did Lincoln fear?
•
Guerrilla warfare
•
A final bloody Armageddon
2. What was Lincoln’s vision?
•
No hangings or bloody work
•
But surrender with dignity and grace
→ Abraham Lincoln visits City Point, VA
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
“Let them surrender and go home, they will not take up arms again.
Let them all go, officers and all, let them have their horses to plow
with, and, if you like, their guns to shoot crows with. Treat them
liberally… I say, give them the most liberal and honorable terms.”
——Abraham Lincoln
(City Point, Virginia, on board River Queen, March 28, 1865)
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part II (B): Words & Expressions
in effect/fact/reality
City Point was, in effect, an armed command post for the
Northern Army….
confer with
• to meet and discuss with (sb) to make a decision
He always confers with his colleagues before reaching a
decision.
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part II (C): Discussion
1. How was the Appomattox surrender “far richer”?
•
Uncertainty of Lee’s fate: another defeated general?
•
Outcries for punishment and vengeance
•
What if Grant, who has a reputation as “Unconditional
Surrender,” did not carry out Lincoln’s vision?
•
Thousands of men standing at rapt attention
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part II (C): Discussion
“And he should have been nervous because, throughout history,
as he knew all too well, defeated generals and revolutionaries and
traitors were typically beheaded, or they were hanged, or they
were imprisoned or, like General Napoleon, they were exiled.”
2. Who were these generals and revolutionaries? Give some
names!
3. Why so?
→ Typically, people believe that the ending of the war decides
who is right!
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part II (C): Discussion
4. What are the terms for surrender?
•
The Army of Northern Virginia: paroled
•
Soldiers: take home their horses or mules
•
Officers: allowed to keep their sidearms (Lee spared from
the humiliation of a classic surrender of his sword)
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
The Appomattox Surrender
→ more information
5. Lee’s and Grant’s different ways
of attiring, deliberate or not?
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Quotes from Ulysses Grant:
• “I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the
downfall of a foe who had fought so long and
valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause,
though that cause was, I believe, one of the
worst for which a people ever fought, and one
for which there was the least excuse. I do not
question, however, the sincerity of the great
mass of those who were opposed to us.”
• “The war is over. The rebels are our
countrymen again, and the best sight of
rejoicing after the victory will be to abstain
from all demonstrations.”
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Quotes from General Lee:
• “Boys, I have done the best I could for
you. Go home now. And if you make
as good citizens as you have soldiers,
you will do well. I shall always be
proud of you. Goodbye. And God
bless you all.” From the crowd came a
loud cry. “Farewell, General Lee! I
wish for your sake and mine that
every damned Yankee on earth was
sunk ten miles in hell!”
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part II (C): Words & Expressions
at hand
• close in distance or time
defy logic; defy the odds
• to go against sth; not to happen according to the principles
The company’s explanation for the accident defies logic.
Review
straighten up
telescope
rip apart
want a piece of sth
throng
forge
digress
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part III (A): Volatile situation after Appomattox
1. Confederate armies still fighting in the field
Commander
Date of Surrender
Tennessee
Joseph E. Johnston April 18, 1865
Alabama & Mississippi
Richard Taylor
May 4, 1865
Arkansas
M. Jeff Thompson
May 12, 1865
Louisiana & Texas
E. Kirby Smith
May 26, 1865
Indian Territory
Stand Watie
June 28, 1865
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
2. Jefferson Davis calling for
guerrilla warfare
•
•
•
•
•
•
Senator
President of the Confederacy
Advocate of guerrilla warfare
Captured and imprisoned on May
10, 1865
Failed business man
Author: The Rise and Fall of the
Confederate Government
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
3. Mary Lee’s urge for continued fighting
•
•
Robert Lee’s wife
Great-granddaughter of Martha Washington
→ What might the Confederacy mean to Mary
Lee and to many other confederates?
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
4. Assassination of Lincoln—decapitation!
•
•
•
April 14, 1865, Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.
Assassin: John Wilkes Booth
Part of a larger conspiracy for continued fighting
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
5. Union government in crisis
What was the crisis?
•
President assassinated
•
Vice-president incapable and unpopular
•
Temptations for regency, cabinet government and military coup
•
Generals suspected and later warned
→ The transition mechanism
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Andrew Johnson, the buffoon
•
•
•
•
•
•
Southerner, born in North Carolina
17th President of the US (1865-1869)
Conciliatory policies towards the South
Vetoes of civil rights bills
No clear party identity—the buffoon
The first US President to undergo an
impeachment trial
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Bill Sherman, the conspirator?
•
•
•
•
No. 2 in the Union Army, after Grant
Nervous breakdown during the Civil War
“Create havoc and destruction of all
resources that would be beneficial to the
enemy.”
Disrepute in the Westward Moment
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
The transition mechanism established by the founders
(Founding Fathers)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
President
Vice-President
House Speaker
Acting Senate Speaker
Secretary of State
Secretary of Treasury
Section 1, Article II, the
Constitution
Amendment XX
Amendment XXV
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part III (A): Words & Expressions
behind sth
• responsible for sth; the cause of sth
What’s behind his overnight success?
He’s one of the people behind the rapid development in
computer science.
Review
for that matter surrender be descended from
volatile
unseat
figure under way
intend for sb to do write off
grip
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part III (B): Discussion
1. How did Sherman behave differently in handling the Bennett
House Surrender? How to account for the change?
2. How did Sherman and the Washington circles interpret
Sherman’s generous terms to Confederates?
• Sherman
Carrying out Lincoln’s vision
• The Washington circles (the Union Cabinet)
A conspiracy to bride Confederate officers with very generous
terms
A Napoleonic coup under way
Grant sent to talk to Sherman
Perceptions Matter!
Text Analysis
Detailed Analysis
Part III (B): Words & Expressions
a day’s / two days’, etc. worth of sth
• an amount of sth that lasts for a specified length of time
He has 50 years’ worth of experience in teaching.
pave the way for sb/sth
• to make it easier for sb to do sth or for sth to happen
His research paved the way for developing new IT products.
Review
in chaos take over
The End of the Civil War
Unit 10
Discussion
Reinforcement
Reinforcement
Discussion
1. Reconsider the ending of the American Civil War
•
•
What lessons shall we learn from the unique ending of the
American Civil War?
How do you understand “War does not decide who is right
but who is left.”?
Reinforcement
Discussion
2. Reconsider our historic outlook
•
•
Where do you stand in the old debate “Is it the times that
produce their heroes, or the heroes who usher in the times?”
How do you understand “the richness of history”?