Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies: Grant and Lee at Appomattox (Illustrated)

Although the surrender of General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant and the Army of the Potomac at Appomattox Courthouse did not officially end the long and bloody Civil War, the surrender is often considered the final chapter of the war. For that reason, Appomattox has captured the popular imagination of Americans ever since Lee’s surrender on April 9, 1865.

On both sides, official reports, dispatches and accounts of campaigns were preserved by the federal government in The War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. This collection from those records includes the correspondence between the two leading generals that began in the days just before surrender, as the Army of the Potomac chased the battered Army of Northern Virginia after successfully capturing Petersburg and Richmond on April 2, 1865. After surrendering, Lee wrote one last order to his army and a report to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, both of which are also included here.

This edition is specially formatted with illustrations of the Grant, Lee, Appomattox Courthouse, and the final campaign.