VETERANS: The True Story of Appomattox

Four of the 29 surviving soldiers of the Confederate Army tramped into Little Rock, Ark. last week for their 59th annual reunion, chortled in high glee over a new explanation for the surrender at Appomattox. The story: that General Robert E. Lee handed his sword and hat to General U.S. Grant because he took him to be the doorman. Then, with a sidelong glance at the last survivors of the G.A.R., who had held their last encampment four weeks ago, they decided to keep meeting each year “as long as there are two of us able to meet.”