Program: The Appomattox Campaign: Observations on Grant's Pursuit

Hampton Newsome

Join us on 27 May for a fantastic program! Due to the Memorial Day Holiday, please be sure to make your reservation by 22 May. If you are new to our region or just curious about the Civil War and its history, attend our May meeting to experience a great history presentation.

Program: The Appomattox Campaign: Observations on Grant's Pursuit

In early April 1865, Robert E. Lee and his army broke away from Richmond and Petersburg in a desperate gambit to reach Confederate troops in North Carolina. In response, Ulysses S. Grant unleashed his forces in a vigorous pursuit.

Over the course of a grueling week, Grant and his lieutenants hounded the Confederate columns in a sprawling, dynamic campaign that culminated in Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House and signaled the end of the Civil War.

Drawing from his upcoming book on the Appomattox Campaign, Hampton Newsome

will explore various aspects of these operations including, among other things, the cooperation and conflict among members of the U.S. high command, the performance of Robert E. Lee and his generals, key maneuvers and engagements, logistical issues on both sides, and the efforts of intrepid Federal scouts among other issues.

he Appomattox Campaign: Observations on Grant's Pursuit

Speaker bio: Hampton Newsome lives in Charlottesville and is author of several books on the Civil War, including Richmond Must Fall: The Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, October 1864, which was recognized as a best book of the year by the Civil War Monitor magazine; and The Fight for the Old North State: The Civil War in North Carolina, January-May 1864, which received both the Emerging Civil War Book Award and the Richard Barksdale Harwell

Award from the Atlanta Roundtable. His most recent title, Gettysburg’s Southern Front: Opportunity and Failure at Richmond, received the Edwin C. Bearss Book Award for Outstanding Scholarship from the Chicago Civil War Roundtable as well as the Emerging Civil War 2023 Book of the Year. Recently, he completed a more than 30-year career as an attorney working on environmental and consumer issues.