History

General Lee’s Sword

150 years ago today, Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House.

Excerpted from Battle Lines: A Graphic History of the Civil War by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm and Ari Kelman. Out in May from Hill and Wang.

A hundred and fifty years ago today, the Civil War ended. It ended quietly, in a farmhouse in Virginia, when Gen. Grant and Gen. Lee negotiated the terms of surrender. The agreement they forged set the stage for a new battle, a battle that has not yet ended: the fight over the war’s meaning.

Excerpted from Battle Lines: A Graphic History of the Civil War by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm and Ari Kelman, to be published in May 2015 by Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Text copyright © 2015 by Ari Kelman and Jonathan Fetter-Vorm.

Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm. All rights reserved.