The Final Act of the Civil War in the East

Chris Calkins worked for many years with the National Park Service at Appomattox Court House and was also the Site Manager at the Sailor’s Creek Battlefield State Park in Virginia. This is a thoroughly reorganized and revised edition of the author’s The Battle of Appomattox Station and Appomattox Court House, published nearly four decades ago. It is the first of two volumes on the campaign, the second, The Final Bivouac covers events from the actual surrender on April 10^th through the dispersal of the armies.

An authority on the Appomattox Campaign, Calkins writes that his principal reasons for writing these books was to document the locations of the most significant events from April 8th through April 12th, 1865, and to correlate the troop movements with the fighting and its aftermath. Extensively researched in many archives, including primary sources, first-person accounts, and period maps, plus a physical study of the terrain and the results of archeological evidence.

This important treatment of the battles of Appomattox has allowed historians-park rangers to utilize this research as a basis for interpretive programs and a reason for the American Battlefield Trust to purchase hundreds of acres of historic ground.

Using the personal stories of the soldiers themselves throughout provided hundreds of vignettes that, taken together, paint a vivid picture of the life of the Union and Confederate soldier. Calkins found that few soldiers documented their experience of the last two battles before the surrender.

Perhaps one of the best aspects of Calkins book are the stories of the last soldiers killed and the reflections of soldiers of both sides, upon encountering fallen comrades during those final days of the campaign.

Of great value to the reader are the seven appendices, which cover such matters as “Mileage Table: From Farmville to Appomattox,” and “Weather Reports Southside Virginia, April-May 1865”

Calkins shows no evident bias, allowing all viewpoints to guide his study so readers can arrive at their own suppositions.

Marred primarily by the lack of notes, “No One Wants to be the Last to Die” is a well-written, straight-forward history of the battles around Appomattox and their aftermath, and is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the military history of the Civil War.

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Our Reviewer: David Marshall has been a high school American history teacher in the Miami-Dade School district for more than three decades. A life-long Civil War enthusiast, David is president of the Miami Civil War Round Table Book Club. In addition to numerous reviews in Civil War News and other publications, he has given presentations to Civil War Round Tables on Joshua Chamberlain, Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, the Battle of Gettysburg, and the common soldier. His previous reviews here include, We Shall Conquer or Die, Dranesville, The Civil War in the Age of Nationalism, “Over a Wide, Hot . . . Crimson Plain", The Atlanta Campaign, Volume 1, Dalton to Cassville, Thunder in the Harbor, All Roads Led to Gettysburg, The Traitor's Homecoming, A Tempest of Iron and Lead, The Cassville Affairs, Holding Charleston by the Bridle, The Maps of Second Bull Run, Hell by the Acre, Chorus of the Union, Digging All Night and Fighting All Day, The Confederate Resurgence of 1864, Building a House Divided, Feeding Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, and A Grand Opening Squandered.

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Note: “No One Wants to be the Last to Die” is also available in e-editions.

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