Appomattox with Trump and Clinton
Recently I began to read more about the American Civil War. Here in Virginia, where I live, that war is impossible to escape some 150 years after its end. The conflict-called the ‘war of northern aggression’ by some of my neighbors, the ‘treasonous rebellion’ by those I grew up with in the north-really lives on in the streets and towns of this state that was at the heart of the conflict and that saw more action than any other state. One of the books that has entered my pantheon of the best American history books ever written is Jay Winik’s April 1865 . Here is an entire book about a single month where more important stuff happened than perhaps any other short period in our history. The war ended, Lincoln was assassinated, reconstruction began…on and on all of these important events happened or began all in this one month. No part of this book struck me more powerfully though, than his description of the surrender of the Army of Virginia by General Robert E. Lee to Gen