The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down – Today In Southern History
9 April 1865
On this date in 1865…
Overwhelming firepower and numbers left Confederate General Robert E. Lee little choice but to surrender the remaining 26,765 men of the Army of Northern Virginia to federal General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia.
Other Years:
1585 – Sir Richard Grenville’s fleet departed Plymouth, England with five main ships: the Tiger (Grenville’s), the Roebuck, the Red Lion, the Elizabeth, and the Dorothy to establish Roanoke Colony.
1682 – French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle claimed the lower Mississippi Valley for France.
1947 – An estimated F-5 tornado killed 169 people and injured 1,300 in Texas and Oklahoma.
1959 - NASA introduced the original ‘Mercury Seven’ astronauts in Houston, Texas.
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