JUDGMENT AT APPOMATTOX
By Ralph Peters
Forge Paperback
439 pgs
Author Peters, a military veteran and Civil War historian, offers up a gripping narrative detailing the last few weeks of that bloody conflict. Telling the story in novel form, he focuses not only on the battles and skirmishes that spanned Virginia from one end to the other, but also on the personal trials and ordeals of the men themselves. Aware that his army of Northern Virginia is being slowly destroyed with each new bloody encounter, Robert E. Lee is desperate to find an escape route from the relentless, bulldog pursuit of the Union Army led by Ulysses S. Grant.
Weighing on Lee’s shoulders is his responsibility to either attempt to continue the war or to surrender and end the carnage. Peters is a gifted writer who doesn’t shy away from depicting the horror deprivation the soldiers of South endured in those last weeks. Without food, ammunition, supplies and unfathomable losses, these Confederates battle on as if unable to face the reality of their defeat. Thus it rest on Lee, the man they idolized, to swallow that bitter pill if only to save those few thousands who remained alive after four of the bloodiest years our country had ever endured.
“Judgment at Appomattox” is in the end a judgment on the folly of all wars and at the same time a testament to leaders on both sides who answered their call of duties with all their courage and honor. A book well worth reading and contemplating these days.
