On the Web
The bell-ringing at Appomattox will be streamed live at noon Pacific time at:
video.magpi.net/videos/livestreams/page1
Information and links to curriculum on distance learning for students in grades five through eight are at:
www.nps.gov/civilwar/civil-war-to-civil-rights.htm
Other links are at:
storify.com/Bells2015/bells-across-the-land-2015
On the Web
The bell-ringing at Appomattox will be streamed live at noon Pacific time at:
video.magpi.net/videos/livestreams/page1
Information and links to curriculum on distance learning for students in grades five through eight are at:
<a href="http://www.nps.gov/civilwar/civil-war-to-civil-rights.htm">www.nps.gov/civilwar/civil-war-to-civil-rights.htm</a>
Other links are at:
storify.com/Bells2015/bells-across-the-land-2015
With pealing bells and booming cannon, Fort Vancouver will join in an April 9 national commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the surrender at Appomattox.
The local observance of “Bells across the Land: A Nation Remembers Appomattox” will begin at 12:15 p.m. at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, 1001 E. Fifth St., Vancouver.
The National Park Service observance will mark the afternoon of April 9, 1865, when Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant accepted the surrender of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia.
While Lee’s surrender did not end the Civil War — the last of the Confederate forces surrendered on June 2, 1865 — most Americans consider Appomattox to be its symbolic end.
The bells will ring first at Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, coinciding with the end of the meeting between Grant and Lee in Wilmer McLean’s house.
After the ringing at Appomattox, bells will chime across the country for four minutes — one minute for each year of the war, which started April 12, 1861.
At Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, the bell ringing will be followed by an artillery salute just north of the reconstructed fort stockade. The salute, using replica artillery modeled after Civil War-era weaponry, will be done by costumed Union soldiers representing the First Oregon Volunteer Cavalry, one of the units that served at the post during the Civil War.
The commemoration is part of a four-year series of 150th anniversaries of Civil War events.
While Fort Vancouver was far from the fighting, many army officers who had served here early in their careers played important roles in the Union army — including Grant — and a few resigned their commissions to become Confederate generals.
Fourteen Union officers were at Lee’s surrender, and five had served at Fort Vancouver as young officers.
“The lone Confederate officer accompanying Gen. Lee, Lt. Col. Charles Marshall, was the uncle of Gen. George C. Marshall, commander of Vancouver Barracks in 1936-1938,” Greg Shine, chief ranger and historian, said in a news release.
Civil War veterans — including several Medal of Honor winners — were posted to Fort Vancouver and Vancouver Barracks (the name was changed in 1879) for decades after the war.
