One nation indivisible

Okay, here's a brief lecture for those of you who forgot WHY April 9 is significant and WHY I chose it for my birthday.

The Battle of Appomattox Court House, fought on the morning of April 9, 1865, was the final engagement of Confederate States Army General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia before it surrendered to the Union Army under Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, and one of the last battles of the American Civil War.

The signing of the surrender documents occurred in the parlor of the house owned by Wilmer McLean on the afternoon of April 9.

What a lot of people don't know is that poor McLean could not escape the Civil War. The first battle of The War (later named the First Battle of Bull Run) took place on July 18, 1861 at McLean's plantation, in Manassas, Prince William County, Va.

In the spring of 1863, McLean moved his family moved about 120 miles south to Appomattox County, Va., near a small community called Appomattox Court House.

Lee surrendered to Grant in McLean's parlor on April 9, 1865, effectively ending the Civil War. 

McLean allegedly later said, "The war began in my front yard and ended in my front parlor."

He might have been a Confederate, but I still feel sorry for him.