Dear Henry, Before Fish and I left Virginia, we stopped by Appomattox Court House. Let me tell you all about it. The story of Appomattox Court House begins with the US Civil War. The US Civil War was an internal conflict between the Northern (Union) and the Southern (Confederate) states. There have been problems brewing between the Northern and Southern states since the Revolutionary War, particularly surrounding the issue of slavery and the economic benefit it offered the South.   The conflict kicked off with President Abraham Lincoln's election in December 1860. Eleven southern states, starting with South Carolina, seceded from the United States, and then in April 1861, the South Carolina militia attacked and seized the federally owned Fort Sumter, near Charleston. From 1861 to 1865, more than 2.75 million Americans fought, and more than 600,000 died. It is, in my opinion, the darkest period in United States history, and I still can't believe it happened.  The end of th...