page_title: 2nd West Virginia Cavalry Regiment
section_title: Battle of Appomattox Courthouse
hierarchical_section_title: 2nd West Virginia Cavalry Regiment / New 2nd West Virginia Cavalry / Battle of Appomattox Courthouse
caption_attribution_description: The Room in the McLean House, at Appomattox C.H., in which Gen. Lee surrendered to Gen. Grant Most written accounts of Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, noted the difference between Lee’s stiff dignity and Grant’s more relaxed demeanor. This lithograph of the event, showing the two men as they waited for the peace terms to be copied, captures that difference better than most. After the surrender, Wilmer McLean, the owner of the house, lost much of his furniture to soldiers desiring mementos of the historic event. Later, in what proved to be a futile effort to recoup his losses and raise funds for his needy family, he commissioned this print. Pictured Left to Right: John Gibbon, George Armstrong Custer, Cyrus B. Comstock, Orville E. Babcock, Charles Marshall, Walter H. Taylor, Robert E. Lee, Philip Sheridan, Ulysses S. Grant, John Aaron Rawlins, Charles Griffin, unidentified, George Meade, Ely S. Parker, James W. Forsyth, Wesley Merritt, Theodore Shelton Bowers, Edward Ord. The man not identified in the picture’s legend is thought to be General Joshua Chamberlain, a hero of Gettysburg who presided over the formal surrender of arms by Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia on April 12, 1865. The table and chairs are on display at the Smithsonian Istitution.
context_page_description: The 2nd West Virginia Cavalry Regiment served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. It was organized in Parkersburg, Virginia during September 1861. Most of the original members of this regiment were from southeastern Ohio, and planners thought that this regiment would become the 4th Ohio Cavalry. Their application was rejected by the governor of Ohio, so the unit became the 2nd Regiment of Loyal Virginia Volunteer Cavalry. The "Loyal Virginia" part of the name was replaced with "West Virginia" after the state of West Virginia was officially admitted to the Union in 1863. Today, the National Park Service lists them as 2nd Regiment, West Virginia Cavalry under a heading of Union West Virginia Volunteers.
  The regiment's first full–fledged war experience happened in early January 1862 in northeastern Kentucky, where they assisted the command of Colonel James A. Garfield. For the next two years, most of the regiment's fighting was in the mountainous backwoods of what later became the southern portion of West Virginia, especially the Kanawha River Valley.
context_section_description: On April 9, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia continued to flee westward. Infantry led by Generals John Brown Gordon and James Longstreet, and cavalry led by Fitzhugh Lee formed a battle line near the Appomattox Court House. This was their last chance to escape to Lynchburg, as Union troops were attempting to surround them.
  A Confederate officer approached Capehart's 3rd Brigade on horseback under a flag of truce. Capehart and the officer rode down the column to General Custer, where the officer told the general that Lee and Grant were in correspondence concerning a surrender of Lee's Army. The Confederate officer also requested a truce until the results of the negotiation were known. Custer's response was "Tell General Longstreet that I am not in command of all the forces here, but that I am on his flank and rear with a large cavalry force, and that I will accept nothing but unconditional surrender."
  The 2nd West Virginia Cavalry's participation in this "battle" was mostly preparing to attack—but no full-fledged charges were made. Shortly after his meeting with Longstreet's representative, Custer turned command of the division over to General Capehart, commander of the 3rd Brigade (that included the 2nd West Virginia Cavalry). Custer rode off to see General Sheridan.
  Thus, on April 9, 1865, Confederate General Lee unconditionally surrendered his starving Army of Northern Virginia to General Grant. The surrender look place at the home of Wilmer and Virginia McLean in the small community of Appomattox Court House, Virginia.
caption: Lee surrenders to Grant
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "8707", "Image ImageLength": "6197", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2012:03:24 02:24:20", "Image ExifOffset": "232", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "382", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10114", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "8707", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "6197"}