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American Minute, with Bill FedererApril 9The Civil War began on Wilmer McLean's farm in Manassas Junction, Virginia, with the First Battle of Bull Run. A Union shell exploded in his kitchen. Wilmer McLean moved to get away from the conflict, yet almost four years later his new home, near Appomattox Court House, Virginia, was the agreed location for General Robert E. Lee to surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant on APRIL 9, 1865. Ken Burn's documentary film of the Civil War stated that the war began in Wilmer McLean's front yard and ended in his front parlor. The Civil War...

A big anniversary is drawing extra tourists to the battlefields of Appomattox. One hundred and forty-five years ago Friday, General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederacy at Appomattox, bringing the Civil War to an end. Crowds gathered to re-live the historic moment at the Appomattox National Historic Site. Actors are playing the part of townspeople to help visitors understand what the area was like in the 1860's. Friday's events have attracted visitors from across the U.S. Some drove from as far away as Oregon and California. "We had about 400 people out here on Thursday. It was nice. Don't know...

APPOMATTOX, Va. (AP) - Virginia State Police are reporting multiple fatals and injuries involving a lone gunman in central Virginia. State police spokeswoman Corinne Geller says more than 100 law enforcement officials have surrounded the suspected gunman in a wooded area just outside of Appomattox. She could not say how many had been killed or injured. Police say the violence began shortly after noon Tuesday when an injured man was found on a rural stretch of road. Police say when officers responded, someone fired at them. A state police helicopter had to land with a ruptured fuel tank. The officers...

'Several' fatalities in Virginia shooting: police (AFP) – 2 hours ago WASHINGTON — A shooting in Virginia on Tuesday caused "several fatalities," and law enforcement officials were still searching for the gunman, state police said.... "There is just one male suspect," he added.... "When the deputy arrived on scene, the deputy heard several gun shots and he in turn contacted his dispatch center and they dispatched several more of their deputies to the scene along with contacting the Virginia state police for assistance," Molnar said....

Ever since the document was examined several weeks ago, it's been a mystery. Initially, it appeared to be a reproduction of the terms and conditions of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender in Appomattox, Va., in 1865. But staff members of the Civil War and Underground Railroad Museum in Center City - who came upon the document while preparing for the museum's relocation - soon noticed pen indentations in the paper, and darker and lighter ink strokes consistent with handwriting. They also found a notation in a 1935 museum inventory identifying the document as an "original." Could this artifact, crudely...

On April 9 1865, only days after fleeing Richmond, Robert E Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House. On the evening of April 8, the ANV had arrived at Appomattox where Lee planned on meeting a supply train that had arrived at nearby Appomattox Station. The plan was to feed and rearm as many troops as possible before continuing their retreat. A fast-moving Federal cavalry unit dispersed a small Confederate detachment guarding the supply train and captured it. At this point, Lee did not believe that Federal infantry was anywhere near his position. He believed that...

Excerpted with permission from April 1865: The Month That Saved America....To grasp the full horror of the march it is necessary to make it yourself. The landscape constantly changes: open fields are exasperatingly punctuated by high hedges and dense windbreaks that are impossible to see through or over or around. On the other side, they seamlessly merge into swamps, or dense, claustrophobic woods, or undergrowth so thick as to be a second forest; or, conversely, they run into long, muddy tracts, known euphemistically as Virginia quicksand. Once more, Lee pushed his men to the outer limits of human endurance. "I...