April 1865

PORTABLE PROFESSOR™ is a series of exciting and informative lectures recorded by some of today’s most renowned university and college professors. Each course introduces listeners to fascinating, and sometimes startling, insights into the intellectual forces that shape our understanding of the world. Each package includes 14 riveting lectures presented by notable professors as well as a book-length course guide.In April 1865, after nearly five years of bitter civil war, Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House. Soon after, Richmond lay in ruins, Lincoln had been assassinated, and the terrible war—which had cost some 600,000 American lives—was not yet over. Many of the Confederate commanders still in the field that fateful April were prepared to fight a guerrilla war that might have prolonged the conflict indefinitely. Award-winning author Jay Winik here brings the tension of that pivotal month to life in a riveting series of lectures about the final chapter of the U.S. Civil War.COURSE LECTURESA Nation DelayedThe Dilemma: America as Two NationsThe Warrior: Robert E. LeeThe Epic Fall of RichmondThe Chase-Grant Hot on Lee’s HeelsThe Fateful Decision: Guerrilla War?U.S. Grant and the Historic Meeting at AppomattoxApril l4: Decapitation and the Great Unraveling?Abraham Lincoln: On Whom So Much DependsPost-Assassination: Would it Now All Come Undone? The Volatile Ones: Nathan Bedford Forrest and Bill ShermanThe Surrender ContinuesThe Final Obstacles to ReconciliationWhat Happened To Make a Nation?Following a distinguished career in the U.S. government as a national security and foreign policy adviser, Jay Winik is now a senior scholar at the Center for International and Strategic Studies and adjunct professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Maryland. Winik is the author of On the Brink, about the end of the Cold War, as well as the best-selling April 1865: The Month That Saved America, on which this course is based.