The Road to Appomattox Author:Bell Irwin Wiley Since the curtain fell on the Confederate States of America in 1865, many people on both sides of the Mason and Dixon limes have speculated on the causes of the South's defeat. — In The Road to Appomattox, originally presented as the J.P. Young lectures at Memphis State College in 1954, Bell Irwin Wiley -- professor of history at Emory University... more » -- sketches the course of the Confederacy's decline and reappraises the influences leading to its defeat.« less