Our time in Raleigh while interesting enough in its own way was fairly quiet overall. But of all that we did and saw, the biggest draw for me was Bennett Place. For some time now, it had been in my top five list of places to see.
In the front room of the Bennett family farmhouse on the Hillsboro-Durham road, just a few days after General Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox Court House, General Joseph E. Johnston requested a meeting with General William T. Sherman to discuss surrender terms. After an initial agreement that was annulled by the White House and Congress for being too lenient, they later redrafted and signed terms which echoed those of Lee and Grant, effectively ending the Civil War.
Imagine looking out your front door and seeing two of the most important people in your world standing before you. Now imagine heading to your (outdoor) kitchen so that they can discuss the most important issue of the day in privacy. This everyday family, who had lost both of their sons and their only son-in-law in the conflict, must have realized that history was being made before their very hearth.
The firebrands of the South declared that any conflict resulting from secession wouldn’t last more 90 days. Pundits in the North announced that the rebels would be back in the Union after the first major battle. (Sound familiar? Pick a war, any war.) Instead, it took four long and bloody years with more than 600,000 combatants dead before the end came. The civilian cost was equally as painful in terms of families destroyed, and for the South, widows and children left destitute and an economy in tatters for decades.
The worldwide war machine feeds on other people’s children, and its appetite is insatiable.
Leave a comment