Appomattox National Historical Park is a wonderful place that I have visited several times. However, I had not taken the time to locate the grave of banjo man Joel Walker Sweeney's grave, which is on the park grounds. This past Tuesday, I enjoyed yet another visit to Appomattox and determined to find it.
Sweeney's grave is quite near where Gen. Robert E. Lee made his last official army headquarters and where he met Gen. Grant the day after the surrender at the McLean House. There are only a handful of marked graves among the simple rail-fenced cemetery. It appears that Sweeney's grave marker is a rather recent placement.
The beginnings of the Appomattox River runs near Sweeney's grave as well. It is difficult to believe that this small stream turns into the broad river it ends up being at Petersburg, and a little further downstream, where it merges into the James River.
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