Today we drove east to Appomattox Courthouse where Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant with his vastly larger Army of the Potomac. There is some weirdness going on here that is hard to understand unless you actually go to the site. There is a courthouse in Appomattox Courthouse but it is not where the Civil War ended. Actually, all the festivities occurred at the McLean House not too far from the courthouse that sits in the center of the tiny township of Appomattox Courthouse. This whole area is a Federal Historical Park and it is revealing to see where the end of this horrible, bloody conflict ultimately came to an end. Seven days later, Abraham Lincoln was shot in Ford’s Theater in D.C.
We left the historical park after wandering around some through the remaining buildings and continued on to the town of Appomattox which was the site of some clashes as Grant tried to stop Lee and his army from going south after their retreat from Richmond but has little else to do with the war. There was one little skirmish here where the Confederacy lost some 7700 guys in a matter of hours.
In the town of Appomattox,we did find a restaurant, Granny Bee’s, that was recommended by the girl working the gate at our campground so we decided to give it a try. Peg had baked ham special and I had the chicken livers which came with very savory onion rings and really tasty baked apples. Everything we got on our plates was terrific and the total, including drinks, was less than $20. I wish we could find a restaurant like this in every town we visit.
After pigging out at Granny Bee’s, we continued south on County 47 through Pamplin, Madisonville and Cullen before turning west on County 40 and tiny-ass road 605 to Gladys where we took a chance on a back road and, surprisingly, ended up a block from our campground. We parked Charlotte and scurried into the trailer to enjoy the benefits of air conditioning. It is getting hot in this part of Virginia; maybe 86 or 88 degrees F.