The Martinsville-Henry County Historical Society will host its monthly Sunday Afternoon Lecture series, “April 1865: Danville, Martinsville, and the End of the Civil War,” with Jarred Marlowe on Sunday, November 20, at 3 p.m., at the Historic Henry County Courthouse.
One of the last engagements of the Civil War in Virginia took place in Martinsville on April 8, 1865, when Union Colonel William J. Palmer’s brigade of General George Stoneman’s command swept through Henry County. A marker, “Near War’s End Henry Courthouse Engagement,” sits across from the front side of the Historic Henry County Courthouse.
The Civil War effectively ended on April 9, 1865, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of Appomattox Court House. The Civil War remains the deadliest military conflict in American history.
Marlowe serves on the Historical Society Board of Directors and as President of the Colonel George Waller Chapter, Sons of the American Revolution. A graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, he is a supervisor at Carter Bank & Trust and lives in Collinsville with his wife, Meghan, and daughter, Ellie.
John Phillips, Historical Society president, said, “Marlowe will dive into the roles Danville and Martinsville played in the final week of the Civil War and how American history could have been vastly different if one or two things happened differently in southern Virginia that week.”
The Sunday Afternoon Lecture series is free, made possible by corporate sponsors, Carter Bank & Trust and the Lester Group. The Historic Henry County Courthouse is fully handicap accessible.
