[VIDEO] Road Trip to Lynchburg and Appomattox

Recently, I was tasked with a road trip to the tiny town of Rustburg, Virginia, for my job. I took the opportunity to visit some of the more interesting stops of Central Virginia. About three and a half hours southwest of Washington, DC, this region is full of interesting little towns and places to explore. The mountain city of Lynchburg provides a convenient base for exploring the region. I stayed right across the street from Liberty University, an enormous Christian school founded by the controversial evangelist Jerry Falwell.

My main “fun” stop was Appomattox Courthouse National Historical Park, the site of the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee to the Union commander Ulysses S. Grant. This event effectively marked the end of the Civil War. Today, the original town of Appomattox Courthouse has been completely preserved, and the furnishings in the house where the surrender took place are exactly the same as they were in April 1865. In the nearby cemetery, the graves of the final Confederate casualties of the War are decked out in Confederate flags. Appomattox may have been the place where the actual Confederacy ended, but it also feels like the place where the myth of the “Lost Cause” of the Confederacy ended.