This April 9 is the 150th anniversary of General Ulysses S. Grant’s acceptance of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, the first and most important of the series of April and May 1865 Confederate surrenders that ended the Civil War, a war in which more Americans died than died in all of this country’s other wars from the Revolution to today, combined.

To commemorate this day, one of the most important in the history of the country, the National Park Service is calling on all organizations across the country that have bells to join in a national ceremony to ring their bells for four minutes beginning at 3:15 p.m. EST/12:15 p.m. PST, the time of Lee’s surrender. The four minutes signify the four years of war that led to those deaths but also to the end of slavery and, in the words of President Lincoln who would himself die only six days later from an assassin’s bullet, a rebirth of freedom. Let all the bells of the San Juans toll on April 9, joining in this solemn national commemoration.

Joe Massey

Deer Harbor