Parlor Where the Surrender Took Place (Reconstructed) - Appomattox
Lee sat at the marble table, Grant at the wooden one
Attacking until almost the bitter end, seeking a breakout that will allow a convergence with the Army of Tennessee, at dawn Lee's troops move forward for the last time under the guidance of Major General John B. Gordon (a Virginian who starts the war as a captain of Alabamian infantry), hitting the surrounding Union cavalry of Major General Phil Sheridan (by this time, the once mighty Army of Northern Virginia has been reduced to 27,805 soldiers). Successful at first, the Confederates top a rise and see arrayed before them in battle formation the entire Union XXIV Corps, with the Union V Corps beside them on the right (Northern forces in the area total over 150,000). Given the news, and knowing he has no supplies for his army after Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer's horsemen destroyed them the day before, Lee orders his men back and sadly states, "Then there is nothing left for me to do but to go see General Grant and I would rather die a thousand deaths."
Gordon & Sheridan
After consulting with his top staff, Lee writes Grant that he is willing to meet with the Union commander to discuss the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. Riding to meet Sheridan, Grant's early morning migraine instantly vanishes and he invites Lee to choose a site for their talk (an unusual turn, since victors most often do the dictating as to time and place). Grant's response in turn received, Lee orders his aide de camp, Colonel Charles Marshall of Virginia, to find a suitable site for the meeting ... a task Marshall quickly accomplishes, choosing the small community of nearby Appomattox Court House, a village of twenty buildings that is a Virginia waystation for travelers on the Richmond-Lynchburg Stage Road.
Marshall
Appomattox - April, 1865
Rejecting the first home he comes on as too dilapidated, Marshall ironically selects a brick house for the meeting between Lee and Grant built in 1848 that belongs to Wilmer McLean ... ironically because McLean has fled to Appomattox to get away from the war after finding his former abode in the middle of the first major clash of the war, the 1861 First Battle of Bull Run (or Manassas if you prefer the Southern titles for Civil War fights) ... it is said of McLean, that the war started in his front yard and ended in his front parlor (during the Battle of Bull Run, while McLean's home is being used as headquarters for Confederate Brigadier General P. G. T. Beaugard, a Union fired cannonball drops out of the home's fireplace, disrupting a staff meal).
McLean
The Bull Run Home
McLean Home - 1865
Lee arrives first at the McLean estate (accompanied by three aides), dressed in an immaculate grey uniform as if on parade, while Grant, fresh from his visit to the front rides up to the house shortly afterwards in mud-splattered attire ... a government issued sack coat, trousers tucked into muddy boots, and with no sidearms, only his tarnished shoulder straps alert that the man is a five-star general.
The Confederacy Surrender Flag
Grant & Lee
After shaking hands, Grant reminisces about the last time the two men met during the war with Mexico (Lee doesn't remember the encounter), but Lee quickly brings him back to the point of their current confab ... what will be the terms of surrender for his army. Luckily for Lee, his army, and the South, Grant is a warrior of intelligence with a caring heart ... for quitting the fight, none of the men of the Army of Northern Virginia will be imprisoned or tried for treason, officers are allowed to keep their sidearms, and the defeated soldiers are allowed to return home while keeping their horses and mules for help with spring planting. Additionally, recognizing that Lee's army is starving, Grant authorizes that food rations be given to the Confederates from the supplies of the Northern army.
Greetings
Surrender
The terms of surrender are written out for signature on a document created by Grant's adjutant, Brevet Brigadier General Ely Samuel Parker, a Native-American from the Seneca Tribe of New York. At about 4:00 in the afternoon the document is completed and signed, after which, noticing that Parker is an Indian, Lee extends his hand to Parker and states, "I am glad to see one real American here." A greeting that causes Parker to peacefully retort as he shakes the general's hand, "Sir, we are all Americans."
Parker
One Last Time With His Men
Over, Lee wastes little time in mounting up and returning to his troops ... as Union soldiers cheer wildly, a reaction that Grant orders immediately stopped. As Grant states in his memoirs, "The Confederates were now our countrymen, and we did not want to exult over their downfall." Words of wisdom that many of his officers ignore as they ravage the McLean house for souvenirs of the momentous occasion that has just taken place (throwing money at the property's owner as they remove this or that from the house) ... anything not nailed down. Examples include nine-year-old Lula McLean losing a rag doll she left on the dining room table (it will be called "The Silent Witness" by its taker, Sheridan aide Lt. Colonel Thomas Moore), General Sheridan pays $20 in gold for the table Grant used to sign the surrender (planning to present the table to Libby Custer as a way of saying thanks for the services of her husband during the war ... the husband who dashes off from the surrender on horseback with the wooden piece of furniture draped over his shoulder), Major General Edward Otho Cresap Ord pays $40 for the table Lee used (he will try to present it to Grant's wife, but gift declined, Ord's wife ends up with the marble table), Brevet Major General George Sharpe pays $10 for a pair of brass candlesticks, Colonel Michael Sheridan, the general's brother, absconds with a stone inkstand, Colonel Henry Capehart gets the chair Grant sat in, and Captain O'Farrell of Hartford comes away with Lee's chair ... by the time acclaimed photographer Matthew Brady arrives at the house to document the day's event on film, the front parlor of McLean's house is empty!
Ord
Sharpe
Capehart
Custer
The Surrender Chairs Of Lee And Grant - And The Table
The Surrender Chairs Of Lee And Grant - And The Table
The Silent Witness
Though there will be more deaths before the war is fully over, the repercussions of Lee's surrender are immediate ... other Southern forces still in the field also begin surrendering, Washington D.C. breaks into a mad celebration at receipt of the news, and in his room, a depressed John Wilkes Booth decides that kidnapping President Lincoln is no longer an option and he will have to kill the president.
Big News
Why did today matter? It mattered because the American Civil War began ending on this day in 1865!
Remembered
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