JUDGMENT AT APPAMATTOX

 

JUDGMENT AT APPOMATTOX

By Ralph Peters

Forge Paperback

439 pgs

 

Author Peters, a military veteran and Civil War historians, offers up a gripping narrative detailing the last few weeks of that bloody conflict. Telling the story in a novel format, his focus is not only on the actual battles and skirmishes that covered one of end of Virginia to another, but also the personal trials and ordeals of the men themselves. Aware that his army of Northern Virginia is being destroyed slowly with each new bloody encounter, Robert E. Lee is desperate to find an avenue of escape 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.


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