An Interview with Elizabeth Varon

Our conversation with Elizabeth Varon, the Langbourne M. Williams Professor of American History at the University of Virginia and author of “Appomattox: Victory, Defeat, and Freedom at the End of the Civil War” published by Oxford University Press. In the interview, Dr. Varon touches on the deeper contested meaning of the iconic surrender at Appomattox Court House. She explains how such feelings spread within the respective armies and onto the homefront. In doing so, Varon argues, the war effectively ended at Appomattox, but battles over what the war truly meant to the likes of Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, and others was far from over.