Lessons From the Civil War #218 By Hank Silverberg April 9,1865 was the day Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulyssis S. Grant at Appomattox. The defeated Confederate States of America, (Surrender at Appomattox, Courtesy of battlefields.org) a country which never legally existed, still had armies in the field, but Lee's surrender pretty much ended a long and bloody Civil War which killed almost 700,000 Americans, both in uniform and civilian. And almost immediately after Appomattox the myths began about the causes of that war and who was to blame for starting it. I write about this today because the myths persist all these years later and still seem to find their way into contemporary politics. That war was the biggest failure in American political history. And the wounds, despite Mr. Lincoln's plea, have never really healed. School children across the south were taught for decades that the war w...