Appomattox Court House National Historical Park
The Appomattox Court House is a National Historical Park of original and reconstructed 19th century buildings in Appomattox County, Virginia. The village is famous as the site of the Battle of Appomattox Court House and containing the house of Wilmer McLean, where the surrender of the Confederate army under Robert E. Lee to Union commander Ulysses S. Grant took place on April 9, 1865 ending the American Civil War; the McLean House was the site of the surrender conference, but the village itself is named for the presence nearby of what is now preserved as the Old Appomattox Court House. The park was established August 3, 1935; the village was made a national monument in 1940 and a national historical park in 1954. It is located about three miles east of Appomattox, the location of the Appomattox Station and the "new" Appomattox Court House, it is in the center of the state about 25 miles east of Virginia. The historical park was described in 1989 as having an area of 1,325 acres; the antebellum village started out as "Clover Hill" named after its oldest existing structure, the Clover Hill Tavern.
The village was a stagecoach stop along the Richmond-Lynchburg stage road. The activity in Clover Hill centered around Clover Hill Tavern; the tavern provided lodging to travelers. Fresh horses for the stage line were provided at the stop, done since the tavern was built, it was the site of organizational meetings and so when Appomattox County was established by an Act on February 8, 1845, Clover Hill village became the county seat. It was parts of Buckingham, Prince Edward and Campbell Counties; the jurisdiction took its name from the headwaters, the Appomattox River. Early Virginians believed. From about 1842, Hugh Raine owned most of the Clover Hill area, he obtained it from his brother John Raine. He sold the property to a Colonel Samuel D. McDearmon. Since his acquisition, it became the county seat and he surveyed 30 acres of the hamlet, he designated 2 acres to be used by the new county to build a courthouse and other government buildings. The courthouse was to be built across the Stage Road from the Clover Hill Tavern.
The jail was to be built behind the courthouse. McDearmon divided the remaining land surrounding the courthouse into 1-acre lots, he felt that with Clover Hill's new status as a county seat he would find professional people ready and willing to purchase the lots. His hopes were dashed in 1854 as the train depot stopped three miles west in Appomattox, Virginia; the American Civil War put the final nails in the coffin. The district once known as Clover Hill and renamed to Appomattox Court House continued to decline as businesses moved to the area of the Appomattox Station; the village contained 30 acres of the original Patteson's Clover Hill Tavern property of some 200 acres. Raine provided the Clover Hill Tavern for meeting space for the organization of the new county in May 1845 and naming the township "Clover Hill."The county records show: "And be it further enacted, that not exceeding thirthy acres of land, now occupied by Captain John Raine, in the now county of Prince Edward, lying on the stage road leading from or through said county to the town of Lynchburg, at the place called and known as Clover Hill, the proposed seat of justice for the said new county, so soon as the same shall be laid off into lots, with convenient streets and alleys, with back and cross streets if necessary, shall be and the same is hereby established a town by the name of Clover Hill."According to a Union writer at the time of the American Civil War the village consisted of about "five houses, a tavern, a courthouse — all on one street, boarded up at one end to keep the cows out."
There were more dwellings in this obscure hamlet, some of which were off the main village street. There were a large number of out-buildings; the hamlet had two stores, law offices, a saddler, three blacksmiths, other businesses. A tavern had been built by John Raine in 1848. Many rural counties in the Southern States had county seats whose names were formed by adding court house to the name of the county, hence the village name became Appomattox Court House, it presently has a couple of dozen restored buildings. Some of the notable buildings are the Peers House, McLean House, New County Jail, Jones Law Office, Clover Hill Tavern, Woodson Law Office, Bocock-Isbell House, Mariah Wright House, Plunkett-Meeks Store, Sweeney-Conner Cabin, Charles Sweeney Cabin, Sweeney Prizery and the Old Appomattox Court House. There are various ruins and cemeteries within the village. At the time of the Act of Congress that authorized the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park in 1935, the existing buildings were the Clover Hill Tavern, the Tavern guest house and kitchen, the Woodson Law office structure, the Plunkett-Meeks Store, the Bocock-Isbell House, several residences outside the village limits.
There are several markers throughout the field of the village that show points of interest within the Park. Some of these are General Grant's headquarters. There is a monument and two tablets that were erected by the state of N
County seat
A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is used in Canada, Romania and the United States. County towns have a similar function in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, in Jamaica. In most of the United States, counties are the political subdivisions of a state; the city, town, or populated place that houses county government is known as the seat of its respective county. The county legislature, county courthouse, sheriff's department headquarters, hall of records and correctional facility are located in the county seat though some functions may be located or conducted in other parts of the county if it is geographically large. A county seat is but not always, an incorporated municipality; the exceptions include the county seats of counties that have no incorporated municipalities within their borders, such as Arlington County, Virginia. Ellicott City, the county seat of Howard County, is the largest unincorporated county seat in the United States, followed by Towson, the county seat of Baltimore County, Maryland.
Some county seats may not be incorporated in their own right, but are located within incorporated municipalities. For example, Cape May Court House, New Jersey, though unincorporated, is a section of Middle Township, an incorporated municipality. In some of the colonial states, county seats include or included "Court House" as part of their name. In the Canadian provinces of Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, the term "shire town" is used in place of county seat. County seats in Taiwan are the administrative centers of the counties. There are 13 county seats in Taiwan, which are in the forms of county-administered city, urban township or rural township. Most counties have only one county seat. However, some counties in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont have two or more county seats located on opposite sides of the county. An example is Harrison County, which lists both Biloxi and Gulfport as county seats; the practice of multiple county seat towns dates from the days.
There have been few efforts to eliminate the two-seat arrangement, since a county seat is a source of pride for the towns involved. There are 36 counties with multiple county seats in 11 states: Coffee County, Alabama St. Clair County, Alabama Arkansas County, Arkansas Carroll County, Arkansas Clay County, Arkansas Craighead County, Arkansas Franklin County, Arkansas Logan County, Arkansas Mississippi County, Arkansas Prairie County, Arkansas Sebastian County, Arkansas Yell County, Arkansas Columbia County, Georgia Lee County, Iowa Campbell County, Kentucky Kenton County, Kentucky Essex County, Massachusetts Middlesex County, Massachusetts Plymouth County, Massachusetts Bolivar County, Mississippi Carroll County, Mississippi Chickasaw County, Mississippi Harrison County, Mississippi Hinds County, Mississippi Jasper County, Mississippi Jones County, Mississippi Panola County, Mississippi Tallahatchie County, Mississippi Yalobusha County, Mississippi Jackson County, Missouri Hillsborough County, New Hampshire Seneca County, New York Bennington County, Vermont In New England, the town, not the county, is the primary division of local government.
Counties in this region have served as dividing lines for the states' judicial systems. Connecticut and Rhode Island have no county level of thus no county seats. In Vermont and Maine the county seats are designated shire towns. County government consists only of a Superior Court and Sheriff, both located in the respective shire town. Bennington County has two shire towns. In Massachusetts, most government functions which would otherwise be performed by county governments in other states are performed by town or city governments; as such, Massachusetts has dissolved many of its county governments, the state government now operates the registries of deeds and sheriff's offices in those counties. In Virginia, a county seat may be an independent city surrounded by, but not part of, the county of which it is the administrative center. Two counties in South Dakota have their county seat and government services centered in a neighboring county, their county-level services are provided by Fall River Tripp County, respectively.
In Louisiana, divided into parishes rather than counties, county seats are referred to as parish seats. Alaska is divided into boroughs rather than counties; the Unorganized Borough, which covers 49 % of Alaska's area, has equivalent. The state with the most counties is Texas, with 254, the state with the fewest counties is Delaware, with 3. County seat war Administrative center County town, administrative centres in Ireland and the UK Chef-lieu, administrative centres in Algeria, Luxembourg, France and Tunisia Municipality, equivalent to county in many c
Native American tribes in Virginia
The Native American tribes in Virginia are the indigenous tribes who live or have lived in what is now the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States of America. All of the Commonwealth of Virginia used to be Virginia Indian territory. Indigenous peoples have occupied the region for at least 12,000 years, their population has been estimated to have been about 50,000 at the time of European colonization. At contact, Virginian tribes spoke languages belonging to three major language families: Algonquian along the coast, Iroquoian in the southern Tidewater region, Siouan above the Fall Line. About 30 Algonquian tribes were allied in the powerful Powhatan paramount chiefdom along the coast, estimated to include 15,000 people at the time of English colonization; as of January 29, 2018, Virginia has seven federally recognized tribes, the Pamunkey Indian Tribe, Eastern Chickahominy, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock and Monacan. The latter six gained recognition through passage of federal legislation.
The Commonwealth of Virginia has recognized these seven and another four tribes, most since the late 20th century. Only two of the tribes, the Pamunkey and Mattaponi, have retained reservation lands assigned by colonial treaties with the English colonists made in the 17th century; the state established an official recognition process by legislation. Federal legislation to provide recognition to six of Virginia's non-reservation tribes was developed and pushed over a period of 19 years. Hearings established that the tribes would have been able to meet the federal criteria for continuity and retention of identity as tribes, but they were disadvantaged by lacking reservations and by state governmental actions that altered records of Indian identification and continuity. In addition, some records were destroyed during earlier conflicts. From the 1920s, state officials arbitrarily changed vital records of birth and marriage while implementing the Racial Integrity Act of 1924; this resulted in Indian families to lose documentation of their ethnic identities.
In 2015 the Pamunkey were recognized as an Indian tribe by the federal government. Following nearly two decades of work, federal legislation to recognize the six tribes was passed on January 29, 2018; the first European explorers in what is now Virginia were Spaniards, who landed at two separate places several decades before the English founded Jamestown. By 1525 the Spanish had charted the eastern Atlantic coastline north of Florida. In 1609, Francisco Fernández de Écija, seeking to deny the English claim, asserted that Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón's failed colony of San Miguel de Gualdape, which lasted only the three months of winter 1526–27, had been near Jamestown. Modern scholars instead place this first Spanish colony within the US in Georgia. In 1542, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto in his expedition to the continent first encountered the Chisca people, who lived in southwestern Virginia. In the spring of 1567, the conquistador Juan Pardo was based at Fort San Juan, built near the Mississippian culture center of Joara in present-day western North Carolina.
He sent a detachment under Hernando Moyano de Morales into present-day Virginia. This expedition destroyed the Chisca village of Maniatique, developed as the present-day town of Saltville, Virginia. Meanwhile, as early as 1559–60, the Spanish had explored Virginia, which they called Ajacán, from the Chesapeake Bay, while seeking passage to the west, they captured a Native man from the Paspahegh or Kiskiack tribe, whom they named Don Luis after they baptized him. They took him to Spain. About ten years Don Luis returned with missionaries to establish the short-lived Ajacán Mission. Native Americans killed all the missionaries. English attempts to settle the Roanoke Colony in 1585–87 failed. Although the island site is located in present-day North Carolina, the English considered it part of the Virginia territory; the English collected ethnological information about the local Croatan tribe, as well as related coastal tribes extending as far north as the Chesapeake. Little can be gleaned about specific native movements in Virginia before the European historical record opens.
So, archaeological and anthropological research has revealed several aspects of their worlds. They shared in earlier cultures of the region. Contemporary historians have learned how to use the Native American oral traditions to explore their history. According to the colonial historian William Strachey, Chief Powhatan had slain the weroance at Kecoughtan in 1597, appointing his own young son Pochins as successor there. Powhatan resettled some of that tribe on the Piankatank River. In 1670 the German explorer John Lederer recorded a Monacan legend. According to their oral history, the Monacan, a Siouan-speaking people, settled in Virginia some 400 years earlier by following "an oracle," after being driven by enemies from the northwest, they found the Algonquian-speaking Tacci tribe living there. The Monacan told Lederer, they said that before that innovation, the Doeg had hunted and gathered their food. Another Monacan tradition holds that, centuries prior to European contact, the Monacan and the Powhatan tribes had been contesting part of
Appomattox River
The Appomattox River is a tributary of the James River 157 miles long, in central and eastern Virginia in the United States, named for the Appomattocs Indian tribe who lived along its lower banks in the 17th century. It drains a cotton and tobacco-growing region of the Piedmont and coastal plain southwest of Richmond; the English colonists in Virginia at first tried to rename the Appomattox as the "Bristoll River", however this name did not catch on, while the native one did. There are numerous historical spelling variants, such as Apamatuck, Appamattuck and Apumetecs, among others; the Appomattox River rises in the Piedmont of northeastern Appomattox County 10 miles northeast of the town of Appomattox. It flows southeast through the Appomattox-Buckingham State Forest to Farmville. From Farmville it flows in a large arc northeast southeast across the coastal plain, passing southwest of Richmond and passing through the Lake Chesdin reservoir, it flows through Petersburg, its head of navigation, through the Tri-cities area joins the James River from the west at City Point in Hopewell.
The Appomattox River was cleared for transportation from Farmville, Virginia to Petersburg, Virginia for batteaux from 1745 to 1890 as the Upper Appomattox Canal Navigation System. Eppington Plantation had docks for larger boats that could carry seven tons to Petersburg in a four-day round trip. Petersburg had a port below the Fall Line that could hold ships which carry 200 tons down river to the Atlantic Ocean. Port Walthall, six miles downstream could hold larger ships and at City Point, where the Appomattox ran into the James River larger ships could dock in the 19th century. In April 1865 during the Appomattox Campaign of the American Civil War, the Confederate forces attempted to burn the High Bridge over the river northwest of Burkeville in order to escape the pursuing Union Army after the fall of Petersburg; the Union capture of the bridge was a contributing factor in the forcing of General Robert E. Lee's surrender at nearby Appomattox Court House, ending the war in Virginia; the river is a popular destination for whitewater rafting and canoeing down stream of the small Abutment Dam in the village of Matoaca to Petersburg near Virginia State University.
List of Virginia rivers VirginiaPlaces.org Appomattox River Basin Appomattox High Bridge Appomattox Campaign 1865
Charlotte County, Virginia
Charlotte County is a United States county located in the south central part of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Its county seat is the town of Charlotte Court House; as of the 2010 census, the county population was 12,586. Charlotte County is predominately rural with a population density of only 26.5 persons per square mile. The county was formed in 1764 from Lunenburg County, it is named for Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III of Great Britain; the county residents became staunch supporters of independence and the American Revolution, Founding Father Patrick Henry was one of its most famous residents. His grave and the national memorial dedicated to him are located in Charlotte County. European settlement of the future county began in the early 18th century, early settlers included English people, with some French Hugenots and Scotch-Irish. After fifty years of European settlement, the House of Burgesses established and incorporated Charlotte County in 1764 from part of Lunenburg County; the new county was named in honor of Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the Queen and wife of King George III of England.
Residents of Charlotte County were involved in the American Revolution. County delegates supported resolutions against the Stamp Act of 1765, the county government was the second governing body to declare independence from English rule. In addition, Charlotte militia units fought under General Robert Lawson during the Yorktown campaign, which led to the end of the American War of Independence; the final resting place and national memorial to revolutionary hero Patrick Henry is at Red Hill Plantation. Charlotte County has played a role in other wars on American soil. An artillery company from Charlotte played a key role in the Battle of Craney Island during the War of 1812. A significant battle in the American Civil War occurred in Charlotte and Halifax counties during the Battle of Staunton River Bridge, which resulted in a victory for the Confederacy. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 478 square miles, of which 475 square miles is land and 2.2 square miles is water.
The county is bounded on the southwest by the Roanoke River, locally known as the "Staunton River". The terrain is hilly. Prince Edward County – north Lunenburg County – east Mecklenburg County – southeast Halifax County – southwest Campbell County – west Appomattox County – northwest US 15 US 360 SR 40 SR 47 SR 59 SR 92 As of the census of 2000, there were 12,472 people, 4,951 households, 3,435 families residing in the county; the population density was 26 people per square mile. There were 5,734 housing units at an average density of 12 per square mile; the racial makeup of the county was 65.51% White, 32.89% Black or African American, 0.14% Native American, 0.16% Asian, 0.70% from other races, 0.59% from two or more races. 1.65% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 4,951 households out of which 28.10% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 52.50% were married couples living together, 13.00% had a female householder with no husband present, 30.60% were non-families.
27.40% of all households were made up of individuals and 13.30% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.47 and the average family size was 3.00. In the county, the age distribution of the population shows 24.30% under the age of 18, 7.20% from 18 to 24, 26.20% from 25 to 44, 24.80% from 45 to 64, 17.50% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 92.00 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.70 males. The median income for a household in the county was $28,929, the median income for a family was $34,830. Males had a median income of $26,918 versus $20,307 for females; the per capita income for the county was $14,717. About 12.70% of families and 18.10% of the population were below the poverty line, including 22.10% of those under age 18 and 20.80% of those age 65 or over. Royal S. Freeman, District G – Bacon/Saxe, Chairman — Term expires 12-31-19 Gary D. Walker, District A – Charlotte Court House — Term expires 12-31-19 Warren E. Weston, District B – Wylliesburg/Red Oak — Term expires 12-31-17 Garland H. "Butch" Hamlett, Jr. District C – Drakes Branch, Vice-Chairman — Term expires 12-31-19 Robert L. "Butch" Shook, Jr. District D – Keysville — Term expires 12-31-17 Nancy R. Carwile, District E – Cullen/Red House, Vice-Chairman — Term expires 12-31-19 Haywood J. Hamlett, District F – Aspen/Phenix — Term expires 12-31-17The Board of Supervisors is the legislative policy making body for the County.
It considers and adopts policies regarding administration, finance, economic development, planning, public safety, recreation and waste removal. The Board appropriates funds for all functions, including the schools, Social Services, Law Enforcement and operation of courts; the Board's scheduled meetings are held on the second Tuesday of each month at 1:30 pm in the Board of Supervisors Room of the County Administration Building, 250 LeGrande Avenue, Suite A, Charlotte Court House, Virginia, 23923. Thomas Jones is the sheriff; the Sheriff is responsible for overseeing criminal investigations, calls for service, court room security, service of civil process and the operation of the Charlotte County jail. The clerk is Nan R. Colley; the Charlotte County Clerk of the Circuit Court manages the records for the Judicial Circuit. In addition, Colley manages the records for the Judicial Circuit and serves as general record keeper for the County, recording all documents relating to land transfer
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America referred to as the Confederacy, was an unrecognized country in North America that existed from 1861 to 1865. The Confederacy was formed by seven secessionist slave-holding states—South Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Texas—in the Lower South region of the United States, whose economy was dependent upon agriculture cotton, a plantation system that relied upon the labor of African-American slaves; each state declared its secession from the United States, which became known as the Union during the ensuing civil war, following the November 1860 election of Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln to the U. S. presidency on a platform which opposed the expansion of slavery into the western territories. Before Lincoln took office in March, a new Confederate government was established in February 1861, considered illegal by the government of the United States. States volunteered militia units and the new government hastened to form its own Confederate States Army from scratch overnight.
After the American Civil War began in April, four slave states of the Upper South—Virginia, Arkansas and North Carolina—also declared their secession and joined the Confederacy. The Confederacy accepted Missouri and Kentucky as members, although neither declared secession nor were they largely controlled by Confederate forces; the government of the United States rejected the claims of secession and considered the Confederacy illegally founded. The War began with the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, a Union fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. No foreign government recognized the Confederacy as an independent country, although Great Britain and France granted it belligerent status, which allowed Confederate agents to contract with private concerns for arms and other supplies. In early 1865, after four years of heavy fighting which led to 620,000–850,000 military deaths, all the Confederate forces surrendered and the Confederacy vanished; the war lacked a formal end.
By 1865 Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States of America for the duration of the civil war, lamented that the Confederacy had "disappeared". On February 22, 1862, the Confederate Constitution of seven state signatories – Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia and Texas – replaced the Provisional Constitution of February 8, 1861, with one stating in its preamble a desire for a "permanent federal government". Four additional slave-holding states – Virginia, Arkansas and North Carolina – declared their secession and joined the Confederacy following a call by U. S. President Abraham Lincoln for troops from each state to recapture Sumter and other seized federal properties in the South. Missouri and Kentucky were represented by partisan factions adopting the forms of state governments without control of substantial territory or population in either case; the antebellum state governments in both maintained their representation in the Union. Fighting for the Confederacy were two of the "Five Civilized Tribes" – the Choctaw and the Chickasaw – in Indian Territory and a new, but uncontrolled, Confederate Territory of Arizona.
Efforts by certain factions in Maryland to secede were halted by federal imposition of martial law. A Unionist government was formed in opposition to the secessionist state government in Richmond and administered the western parts of Virginia, occupied by Federal troops; the Restored Government recognized the new state of West Virginia, admitted to the Union during the war on June 20, 1863, re-located to Alexandria for the rest of the war. Confederate control over its claimed territory and population in congressional districts shrank from 73% to 34% during the course of the American Civil War due to the Union's successful overland campaigns, its control of the inland waterways into the South, its blockade of the southern coast. With the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, the Union made abolition of slavery a war goal; as Union forces moved southward, large numbers of plantation slaves were freed. Many joined the Union lines, enrolling in service as soldiers and laborers; the most notable advance was Sherman's "March to the Sea" in late 1864.
Much of the Confederacy's infrastructure was destroyed, including telegraphs and bridges. Plantations in the path of Sherman's forces were damaged. Internal movement became difficult for Southerners, weakening the economy and limiting army mobility; these losses created an insurmountable disadvantage in men and finance. Public support for Confederate President Jefferson Davis's administration eroded over time due to repeated military reverses, economic hardships, allegations of autocratic government. After four years of campaigning, Richmond was captured by Union forces in April 1865. A few days General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant signalling the collapse of the Confederacy. President Davis was captured on May 10, 1865, jailed in preparation for a treason trial, never held; the initial Confederacy was established in the Montgomery Convention in February 1861 by seven states (South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana
Wilmer McLean
Wilmer McLean was an American wholesale grocer from Virginia. His house near Manassas, was involved in the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861. After the battle he moved to Virginia, to escape the war thinking that it would be safe. Instead, in 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant in McLean's house in Appomattox, his houses were, involved in one of the first and one of the last encounters of the American Civil War. He lived in his house with Virginia; the initial engagement on July 21, 1861 of what would become the First Battle of Bull Run took place on McLean's farm, the Yorkshire Plantation, in Manassas, Prince William County, Virginia. Union Army artillery fired at McLean's house, being used as a headquarters for Confederate Brigadier General P. G. T. Beauregard, a cannonball dropped through the kitchen fireplace. Beauregard wrote after the battle, "A comical effect of this artillery fight was the destruction of the dinner of myself and staff by a Federal shell that fell into the fire-place of my headquarters at the McLean House."McLean was a retired major in the Virginia militia but, at age 47, he was too old to return to active duty at the outbreak of the Civil War.
He made his living during the war as a sugar broker supplying the Confederate States Army. He decided to move because his commercial activities were centered in southern Virginia and the Union army presence in his area of northern Virginia made his work difficult, he undoubtedly was motivated by a desire to protect his family from a repetition of their combat experience. In the spring of 1863, he and his family moved about 120 miles south to Appomattox County, near a dusty, crossroads community called Appomattox Court House. On April 9, 1865, the war revisited McLean. Confederate General Robert E. Lee was about to surrender to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, he sent a messenger to Appomattox Court House to find a place to meet. On April 8, 1865, the messenger knocked on McLean's door and requested the use of his home, to which McLean reluctantly agreed. Lee surrendered to Grant in the parlor of McLean's house ending the Civil War. McLean is supposed to have said "The war began in my front yard and ended in my front parlor."Once the ceremony was over, members of the Army of the Potomac began taking the tables and various other furnishings in the house — anything, not tied down — as souvenirs.
They handed money to the protesting McLean as they made off with his property. Major General Edward Ord paid $40 for the table Lee had used to sign the surrender document, while Major General Philip Sheridan took the table on which Grant had drafted the document for $20 in gold. Sheridan asked George Armstrong Custer to carry it away on his horse; the table was presented to Custer's wife and is now on exhibit at the American History Museum at the Smithsonian. An authentic recreation of McLean's second home is now part of the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park operated by the National Park Service of the United States Department of the Interior. After the war, McLean and his family sold their house in 1867, unable to keep up the mortgage payments, returned to their home in Manassas, they moved to Alexandria, Virginia. He worked for the Internal Revenue Service from 1873 to 1876. Wilmer McLean is buried there at St. Paul's Episcopal Cemetery. Description of McLean's Appomattox house and biographical details Yorkshire Plantation Historical Marker Text U.
S. War Dept; the War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies Series 1, vol 2, Part 1, U. S. Government Printing Office, 1880–1901. Beauregard's report on the battle Wilmer McLean at Find a Grave
Appomattox County, Virginia
