Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Let there be snark.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

The revolution will be supervised.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

I did not have this on my fuck 2024 bingo card.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Everybody saw this coming.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

You are here: Home / Politics / America / Today Is The Anniversary Of Lee’s Surrender At Appomatox

Today Is The Anniversary Of Lee’s Surrender At Appomatox

by | 66 Comments

This post is in: ,

On 9 April 1865 General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant, Commanding General of the Army of the Potomac. While the Army of Tennessee would fight on for a bit, and other Confederate forces would try to make a last stand in Texas, Lee’s surrender marked the effective end of the Confederacy.

Just sayin…

And as a sign that the arc of justice does indeed bend despite the best intentions of the Confederacy’s political descendants:

Richard Overton, the grandson of a slave, worked in a furniture store and as a courier for decades until he finally retired when he was 85. That was more than 25 years ago.

Now, Overton — the country’s oldest living World War II veteran — has been enjoying a bit of fame for his longevity, and has a regular stream of visitors to his home in Austin, Texas.

Last week, he mentioned to one of his visitors that he’d like to someday see the National Museum of African American History in Washington, D.C.

The following morning, Overton and a few friends were on a private jet heading toward the nation’s capital. They got a private tour of the museum before it opened to the public Sunday morning.

It was one in a line of stunning and unlikely happenings for Overton, who is believed to be the oldest living American and the third-oldest person in the world. His 112th birthday is next month. His secret to a long life includes cigars, whiskey and speaking his mind.

“I enjoyed every bit of the tour,” Overton said at the museum as he was lunching on soul food.

Then he added, “I didn’t see my name up there,” referring to the World War II exhibit.

His friends chuckled.

“One of these days it will be,” he assured them.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

66Comments

  1. 1.

    danielx

    His secret to a long life includes cigars, whiskey and speaking his mind.

    A man after my own heart. Okay, maybe not the cigars.

  6. 6.

    Ruckus

    112. I’m trying to let that sink in a bit.
    I know someone who made it to 104, he was a tough old bird. But 112, that’s amazing. I like that he’s a black man, a WWII vet and….. well just, damn, I’m real glad he got to meet President Obama. Grandfather a slave, he gets to see a black man as president. Just. Damn.
    Really though he’s made it this far, what’s a few cigars going to do?

  7. 7.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: He was in the 1887th Engineering Battalion. All African American troops. Served in the Pacific theater. I tried to find either a unit crest or a motto to put in the post, but there’s almost nothing written about it at all. And what there is is in articles about Overton.

  10. 10.

    efgoldman

    @Ruckus:

    112. I’m trying to let that sink in a bit.

    One of my mom’s older brothers made it to 100, but his last few years were spent blind, deaf, and with 24/7 nursing care (which he could afford)

    ETA: FUCKING AUTOPLAY ADS!!

  12. 12.

    Ruckus

    @efgoldman:
    I think someone posted that here before. It is a grand piece of writing. Shade my ass, that’s a home run over the fence by 20 ft.

  13. 13.

    Yarrow

    @Ruckus: Yeah, it’s kind of hard to comprehend. How great that he got to visit the museum.

    Adam, thanks for the post.

  15. 15.

    lahke

    My father’s mother was born in 1893, shook Teddy Roosevelt’s hand when he was whistle-stopping through Vermont, and died at 106, essentially from starving herself to death because she was just tired. My father, another WWII vet, died just short of his 99th birthday. My other granny lived to just 94.

    Yes, I’m fully funding my 401(k)–why do you ask?

  18. 18.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @efgoldman: My grandmother said that 40 to 85 was no big deal. She still felt decent. The next eight years she regretted. I suspect that it varies from person to person.

  19. 19.

    Ruckus

    @efgoldman:
    The man I knew, I met him when he was 95. Bastard looked better than I do at 68. I got to see him through work every year after, at 102 he looked the same, but at 103 he looked frail. At 104 he looked like he was about 6 months overdue for his autopsy. This man at 112 looks far better. I can’t imagine being 112 yrs old. Hell I’m amazed I’ve made it this far. Someone asked me the other day about it and I said I plan to see how far I can take it before someone figures out I’m crashing the party.

  20. 20.

    efgoldman

    @sukabi: I especially liked this (emphasis added)

    I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams’s Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio.

  21. 21.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @efgoldman:

    Its worth re–reading every year

    It’s worth re-reading pretty much every time I come across it, or remember its existence. I’d love to hear someone do a dramatic reading of it – who should it be? I don’t see many movies or TV shows, so I’m not familiar with a lot of actors.

  22. 22.

    Mary G

    What a wonderful story. The story says the family is in debt for caregiver costs, because those his benefits would pay for a nursing home, he wants to stay in his own home. I hope the billionaire who flew him to DC feels called to chip in.

  24. 24.

    Adam L Silverman

    HOLY SHIT!!!

    For at least a year, the biggest page on Facebook purporting to be part of the Black Lives Matter movement was a scam with ties to a middle-aged white man in Australia, a review of the page and associated accounts and websites conducted by CNN shows.
    The page, titled simply “Black Lives Matter,” had almost 700,000 followers on Facebook, more than twice as many as the official Black Lives Matter page. It was tied to online fundraisers that brought in at least $100,000 that supposedly went to Black Lives Matter causes in the U.S. At least some of the money, however, was transferred to Australian bank accounts, CNN has learned.

    Fundraising campaigns associated with the Facebook page were suspended by PayPal and Patreon after CNN contacted each of the companies for comment. Donorbox and Classy had already removed the campaigns.

    The discovery raises new questions about the integrity of Facebook’s platform and the content hosted there. In the run-up to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before Congress this week, Facebook has announced plans to make the people running large pages verify their identity and location. But it’s not clear that the change would affect this page: Facebook has not said what information about page owners it will disclose to the public — and, presented with CNN’s findings, Facebook initially said the page didn’t violate its “Community Standards.”

    Only after almost a week of emails and calls between CNN and Facebook about this story did Facebook suspend the page, and then only because it had suspended a user account that administrated the page.

    Much more at the link!

  25. 25.

    Ruckus

    @efgoldman:
    It is.
    I think I’m going to print it out and hang it with the tridapose engine drawing that some 4th grader send me about 20 yrs ago. No, don’t bother asking me what a tridapose engine is. I’m a decent mechanic, I’ve seen the insides of more engines that you can imagine, can read prints and drawings pretty damn well and the best I can tell you is that there was a 4th grader about 20 yrs ago that had some really good shit and I think he managed to smoke all of it at one time, while sitting with and pencil and pad of paper. And he didn’t leave any burn marks.

  28. 28.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    40 to 66 was easy. The race has gotten a lot more difficult in the last 2 yrs. I’m anticipating not enjoying the rules from here on out.

  29. 29.

    PhoenixRising

    @Omnes Omnibus: My grandmother is 96. When we talked about health and longevity recently–my mom was dying–she said some interesting things. ‘Well, one of these mornings Jessi [her 94yo sister] is going to come in to wake me up and I just won’t be there, and I don’t want anyone to cry over it because I’ve lived a long life and had a lot of good days.’

    She and her sister, who is 94, live on the family farm ‘independently’, and have their DNRs in order. They don’t want to go to the hospital and be kept there on machines.

    Talking to really old people, you can learn a lot.

  30. 30.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: As I wrote at the time: as soon as he took his hand off the bible, the US was in a constitutional crisis.

  32. 32.

    sukabi

    @efgoldman: yes, that was particularly good…the whole letter was an exercise in eloquent restraint…he makes the underlying subtext “Eat shit and die Motherfucker” scream between the lines.

  35. 35.

    Yarrow

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The discovery raises new questions about the integrity of Facebook’s platform and the content hosted there.

    Integrity? It is to laugh. I wonder how long Zuckerberg will be CEO.

  36. 36.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: I have one. It is quite off from most other’s. It’s been described as dark and morbid. I’m also a genetic smartass.

  37. 37.

    NotMax

    Best movie credit have come across in a long time –

    “Story conceived by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”

    Seen while watching The President’s Mystery (1936) recently. Mediocre film in toto. FDR didn’t pen the screenplay so no onus on him for that.

  38. 38.

    Ruckus

    @lahke:
    Granddad born 1890 lived to 84, cancer. Dad lived to be 84, Alzheimers. Mom lived to 94, that was just all she had in her. Granddad missed WWI, crossed the country by horse drawn wagon in 1918, with his wife and infant son and he was a Packard factory trained mechanic. He lived long enough to see two world wars, TV and a man on the moon, his son and his grandson in the navy during 2 different wars.

  42. 42.

    Pupjoint

    Whow.
    My dad got the DFC in 1999 at Hickham AFB in Honolulu for his actions as a B-17 pilot supporting the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. At the age of 79!
    I will never forget the event. All the Air Force personnel were so respectful of this WW2 veteran.
    His speech was “ah shucks, I was just doing my job”, which personified the attitude of all the persons that served during that conflict. Heroes all!

  43. 43.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: OT: Not sure you saw it, but here’s my answer to your question about air strikes:

    Just got back to the nets: my understanding is the strikes were Israeli. Combination of air to ground and strikes from Israeli jets (most likely F-16Is) fired from over Lebanese airspace (they’re not taking chances since the shoot down last month) and cruise missiles fired from Israeli Dolphin class subs in the Med, which are positioned between the US and the Russian naval forces. The reporting I saw also indicated that the Israelis gave the Russians some amount of heads up time, but I haven’t seen anything on how much.

  46. 46.

    Origuy

    In order to get my club the verified icon in Facebook, I had to send a copy of the Articles of Incorporation showing that we are a 501(c)3 organization. Since Black Lives Matter is a decentralized movement, I doubt there’s anything like that for it. Facebook should probably restrict the Donate button to verified organizations, or at least pop up a warning that you may not be sending money to whom you think you are.

  47. 47.

    Betsy

    Hey Adam. The last significant events of the Civil War took place in North Carolina, not Virginia. The last troop retreats; the last mass movement of trips by train; the last two battles; the westward flight of Davis and his “cabinet,”; and the real, final, military-AND-civil surrender all took place in what is now called the Triangle region, in Raleigh, Cary, Morrisville, and Durham. Don’t believe those damned Virginians.

  48. 48.

    Mnemosyne

    @Origuy:

    Facebook can figure out that my niece isn’t 13 and cancel the account she set up for herself, but they can’t figure out who the person using their site to raise money is?

    Let’s face it: as long as Facebook got their cut, they didn’t give a shit whether or not it was a scam.

  52. 52.

    ShadeTail

    Where did that “obituary” picture at the top come from? Because that is pretty awesome.

  57. 57.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @Ruckus:

    I can’t imagine being 112 yrs old.

    It’s never too early to start cultivating the paper trail for your fake identity, as a much younger relative living in a distant city, who can inherit all your accumulated wealth when it’s time to fake your death. Or so I was advised.

  59. 59.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Actually that’s not true.
    At the VA clinic I use there are two of us with the same name and same last 4 SSN digits. When I was temp master of arms of the Long Beach transit barracks a fellow checked in and asked if he could keep his insulin and needles in the refrigerator behind the desk. Asked him his name. Same first, not abnormal, same last, a bit more interesting, same middle initial, same age, starting to get a bit freaky. I didn’t ask his service number or birth date. My dad, in the Shriners, met a fellow on a bus with the same name who had a son with the same name as me and we lived about 3 miles apart in separate towns.

  62. 62.

    Cermet

    Amazing to reach 112; and to still be active and so healthy.

    As for Lee the incompetent general, everyone ignores how under his command the Union achieved one of its great early victories – defeating his (confederate) forces in West Virginia enabling the Union to gain complete control of that vital region. Further, in the long series of battles of the Peninsular campaign, Lee suffered defeat after defeat against McClellan and frankly, had McClellan simply pushed forward one last time, Richmond would have fallen but due to false intelligence and his own determination to believe said intelligence, he withdrew instead. Again, Lee was a complete loser. Even more strange, most all Lee’s so-called “great” victories had far more to do with Union general’s incompetence then anything at all Lee did from a strategic point of view. In fact, with his interior lines, better cavalry (until late in the war), and intel, winning a war by wearing down Union civilian moral should have been his only goal but no, Lee the ass wipe, couldn’t even do that – he was, is and forever will remain a joke of a general.

  66. 66.

    J R in WV

    @Cermet:

    ….Lee the ass wipe, couldn’t even do that – he was, is and forever will remain a joke of a general.

    Yes. And, he was a traitor to his own oath, also too~!

Comments are closed.