Civil War Curiosities: Strange Stories, Oddities, Events, and Coincidences

In 1861, Wilmer McLean, distressed that a cannon ball crashed through his home during the battle of Bull Run, moved to a farm where "the sound of battle would never again reach him and his family." Almost four years later, McLean's Appomattox Court House home was used for Lee's surrender to Grant. There wasn't damage from cannon balls, but souvenir-hunting Union officers left McLean's parlor bare of furniture.

After the Confederacy was...