AFTER LEE’S WITHDRAWAL, Grant moved into Richmond and Petersburg, but also prepared his forces to pursue the fleeing Confederates. His numerous corps were south of the Appomattox River, where they would stay. Sheridan’s cavalry was already pressing the Confederates, who had escaped the debacle at Five Forks and continued to fight rear guard actions with the enemy. The Confederates were falling back into Amelia Court House, and it became apparent where Lee’s army was locating itself. Realizing that the goal must be Danville, Virginia and North Carolina, the troopers under Sheridan’s command rode off to cut the railroad in front of Lee. If they could achieve this and get enough infantry there to support them, Lee’s plan would be crushed.
For the next week there were numerous skirmishes and rear guard actions until the last major engagement between Grant and Lee was fought at Saylor’s Creek on April 6. Also known as the Battle of Sailor’s Creek, that day almost eleven thousand of Lee’s men surrendered, included many general officers, after a combined attack by Sheridan’s cavalry and elements of the Union Second and Sixth Corps’.
Before leaving the area, the commanding general received a note through the lines from Grant, now in Farmville. In it, Grant brought up the possibility of surrender for the Confederate army. Looking it over, Lee handed it to General Longstreet, who read it and replied, “Not yet.” More bloodshed was to come.
With Lee’s line of retreat blocked, he had two choices: attack or surrender. Lee elected to attack. He had held a council of war the night of April 8, and the members determined that an assault would be made to open the road. They believed that only Union cavalry blocked the way. However, during the night parts of three of Grant’s corps had made a forced march and were close at hand to support the cavalry in the morning.
The action on April 8, 1865, known as the Battle of Appomattox Station, determined that the surrender would take place on April 9 in the village of Appomattox Court House. The advantage of position gained by the action on April 8 gave the Union control of the strategic ground necessary to force Lee’s surrender. Grant had proposed the idea of a surrender to Lee on April 7: “General: The results of the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in this struggle. I feel it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate States army known as the Army of Northern Virginia.”1
Lee’s response to Grant the same day shows that he was not ready to surrender, even though he did not want to break off negotiations: “I have received your note of this date. Though not entertaining the opinion you express of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of N. Va.—reciprocate your desire to avoid the useless effusion of blood, and therefore before considering your proposition, ask the terms you will offer on condition of its surrender.”
Grant responded that “peace being my great desire, there is but one condition I would insist upon—namely, the men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged.”2 Meanwhile, Lincoln, who was still at City Point, telegrammed Grant after Saylors Creek “Gen. Sheridan says ‘If the thing is pressed I think that Lee will surrender.’ Let the thing be pressed.”3 Grant already knew this.
Behind Lee’s army lay the main body of the Army of the Potomac—more than thirty thousand men. Even with his hesitancy Lee knew he was surrounded with nowhere to go. He could fight one more horrific battle, but that made no sense. There was no other choice but to send word to Grant that he wished to surrender. Lee made plans to meet Grant and told a staff officer, “There is nothing left for me to do but to go and see General Grant, and I would rather die a thousand deaths.” Grant received a note from Lee during the midst of a migraine attack. But the news brought about an instant cure. He told Horace Porter that “the pain in my head seemed to leave me the moment I got Lee’s letter.”4
On Palm Sunday, April 9, 1865, Grant and Lee met in the parlor of Wilbur McLean’s home in the tiny village of Appomattox Court House. Ironically, at the beginning of the war McLean had lived in Manassas, Virginia, but his house was destroyed during the Battle of First Bull Run in June 1861. McLean figured he was safe from further destruction by moving to faraway Appomattox Court House.
Lee arrived first and Grant about a half hour later. Lee was impeccably dressed in his full general’s uniform and looked the part of the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. Grant, on the other hand, wore a muddy uniform, a flannel shirt with trousers tucked into muddy boots. He had no sidearm and wore no spurs. With the exception of tarnished shoulder straps pinned to his blouse, one would not have recognized his rank. One observer recalled that “Grant, covered with mud in an old faded uniform, looked like a fly on a shoulder of beef.”5
Grant initiated small talk and reminisced about meeting Lee during the Mexican War. Lee remembered the meeting, but nothing else about their encounter nineteen years before. Then he directed the conversation toward the matter at hand. They spent the next hour discussing details of the surrender terms and drawing up copies of documents. Grant was in a generous mood at Appomattox and allowed all Confederates to be pardoned and return home with their horses, sidearms, and baggage. The surrender document spelled out in specific terms what was to occur from that point forward:
In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of the 8th inst., I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of N. Va. on the following terms, to wit: Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate. One copy to be given to an officer designated by me, the other to be retained by such officer or officers as you may designate. The officers to give their individual paroles not to take up arms against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged, [Grant had already told Lee of this clause in previous correspondence; in a sense he was allowing his former enemy to rebel once again, but he realized they were beaten and had no intention to do so] and each company or regimental commander sign a like parole for the men of their commands. The arms, artillery and public property to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the officer appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside.6
Very respectfully,
U. S. Grant, Lt. Gen.
By 4:00 p.m. they had concluded negotiations. Lee and Grant each signed copies of the surrender documents, shook hands, and walked out of the McLean house. Both generals mounted their horses and rode to their respective armies to share the news of the surrender. Instead of elation, Grant felt “sad and depressed . . . at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought.”5 When word spread among the Union lines, celebration erupted with the sound of artillery fired in salute and cheering among the ranks. It was short-lived. Grant ordered the cheering to stop. He did not want the Union army to gloat and in any way insult the defeated Confederates. “The war is over,” Grant told a staff member. “The Rebels are our countrymen again.”7 A short time after leaving the McLean house Grant sat down on a large rock and scribbled a telegram to Secretary of War Stanton, telling him of the day’s events: “Gen. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Va. this afternoon on terms proposed by myself.”8 Grant then returned to City Point, where Julia awaited him, and arrived there on April 12. After wrapping up business, he left his headquarters for the final time and rode to Washington for a meeting with President Lincoln and his cabinet. The city was abuzz with excitement as the war was ostensibly over. Not all Confederate forces had surrendered, but it was only a matter of time.
On April 14 in the meeting at the White House with Grant, Lincoln, and the cabinet focused largely on reconstruction. They made little progress, but that didn’t matter. There would be plenty of opportunities to meet. As the meeting broke up, Lincoln cornered Grant and told him of plans that evening to attend a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre. Unbeknownst to Grant or Julia, Mrs. Lincoln had assumed they would say yes and already announced to the newspapers that both couples would be at the theater. Grant was not sure how to respond, but lucky for him Julia made the decision for them. The Grants were not fond of Mary Todd Lincoln, and neither wanted to be in her presence that night. Julia insisted that instead they take a train to Burlington, New Jersey, where they had a temporary home, to see the children.
That evening the Grants boarded a private car owned by railroad magnate John W. Garrett that was bound for Philadelphia. They arrived in the city at midnight and were escorted to Bloodgood’s Hotel. Waiting for them was a telegraph messenger with the news that the president had been assassinated. “It was the darkest day of my life,” Grant later told newsman John Russell Young. “I did not know what it meant. Here was the Rebellion put down in the field, and starting up in the gutters. We had fought it as war, now we had to fight it as assassination.”9 Throughout his life, Grant felt pangs of guilt that he had not been at the theater, believing he could have protected the president from assassin John Wilkes Booth. He was not alone in his grief. Lincoln’s death at the hands of a rebel sympathizer did little to help the country mend after four years of war. Grant, however, would play a major role in changing the North’s attitude from revenge to reconstruction.