Grant and Lee Bring a Merciful End to the Civil War
Journalists, often the cause of great annoyance to general officers on both sides of the War, were coming to the end of their great education. Writing of the exploits of The Army of Northern Virginia and The Army of the Potomac had provided journalists, North and South, with opportunities to develop a rough-hewn craft into a craft many still thought was slightly less than rough. There was still room for improvement. Robert E. Lee thought there was a great deal of room.
After Appomattox and the end of the Civil War, Lee was offered, and accepted, the presidency of Washington College, now Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. Lee felt that improvement for an aspiring journalist lay in receiving a classical education. Under Lee’s direction, Washington College offered scholarships to those wishing to pursue newspaper work as a career. Those receiving scholarships also would work with local printers.
Lee organized committees to coordinate a classical education program in journalism and made the scholarship program known through advertising. After his death in 1870, however, the program was discontinued without explanation. Speculation has it that Washington College abruptly dropped the program due to criticism from the press.
April 10, 1865: From The New York Times
UNION VICTORY!
PEACE!
SURRENDER OF GENERAL LEE AND HIS WHOLE ARMY THE WORK OF PALM SUNDAY
Final Triumph of the Army of the Potomac.
The Strategy and Diplomacy of Lieut. Gen. Grant.
Terms and Conditions of the Surrender.
The Rebel Arms, Artillery, and Public Property Surrendered. Rebel Officers Retain Their Side Arms, and Private Property. Officers and Men Paroled and Allowed to Return to Their Homes.
The Correspondence Between Grant and Lee.
OFFICIAL.
WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, APRIL 9, 1865 § 9 O’CLOCK P.M.
To Maj. Gen. Dix:
This department has received the official report of the SURRENDER, THIS DAY, OF GEN. LEE AND HIS ARMY TO LIEUT. GEN. GRANT, on the terms proposed by Gen. GRANT.
Details will be given as speedily as possible.
EDWIN M. STANTON, SECRETARY OF WAR.
HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES
4:30 P.M., APRIL 9
Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War:
GEN. LEE SURRENDERED THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA THIS AFTERNOON, upon the terms proposed by myself. The accompanying additional correspondence will show the conditions fully.
(Signed)
U. S. GRANT, LIEUT. GEN’L.
GENERAL – I received your note of this morning, on the picket line, whither I had come to meet you and ascertain definitely what terms were embraced in your proposition of yesterday with reference to the surrender of this army.
I now request an interview in accordance with the offer contained in your letter of yesterday for that purpose.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant, R. E. LEE, GENERAL.
Gen. R. E. Lee, Commanding Confederate States Armies: Your note of this date is but this moment, 11:50 A.M., received.
SUNDAY, April 9, 1865.
In consequence of my having passed from the Richmond and Lynchburgh road to the Farmville and Lynchburgh road, I am at this writing about four miles West of Walter’s church, and will push forward to the front for the purpose of meeting you. Notice sent to me, on this road, where you wish the interview to take place, will meet me.
VERY RESPECTFULLY, YOUR OB’D’T SERVANT,
U. S. GRANT,
LIEUTENANT GENERAL.
APPOMATTOX COURT-HOUSE April 9, 1865.
General R. E. Lee, Commanding C. S. A.: In accordance with the substance of my letters to you of the 8th inst., I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia 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 officers as you may designate.
The officers to give their individual paroles not to take arms against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged, and each company or regimental commander sign a like parole for the men of their commands.
The arms, artillery and public property to be packed and stacked and turned over to the officers 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 parole and the laws in force where they reside.
VERY RESPECTFULLY,
U. S. GRANT, LIEUTENANT-GENERAL.
HEADQUARTERS
U.S. ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA
To LIEUT. GEN. GRANT, COMMANDING
UNITED STATES ARMIES.
April 9, 1865.
Lieut. Gen. U. S. Grant, Commanding U. S. A.:
GENERAL: I have received your letter of this date, CONTAINING THE TERMS OF SURRENDER OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA, as proposed by you. As they are substantially the same as those expressed in your letter of the 8th last, THEY ARE ACCEPTED. I will proceed to designate the proper officers to carry the stipulations into effect.
VERY RESPECTFULLY
YOUR OBEDIENT SERVANT
R.E. LEE, GENERAL
The following is the previous correspondence between Lieut. Gen. GRANT and Gen. LEE, referred to in the foregoing telegram to the Secretary of War:
CLIFTON HOUSE, VA., April 9, 1865.
Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War:
The following correspondence has taken place between Gen. LEE and myself. There has been no relaxation in the pursuit during its pendency.
U. S. GRANT, LIEUTENANT GENERAL.
APRIL 7, 1865.
Gen. R. E. Lee, Commanding C. S. A.:
GENERAL: The result 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 that 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.
VERYRESPECTFULLY,
YOUR OBEDIENT SERVANT,
U.S.GRANT,
LIEUTENANT GENERAL,
COMMANDING ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES.
APRIL 7, 1865.
General: I have received your note of this date.
Though not entirely of the opinion you express of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the army of Northern Virginia, I reciprocate your desire to avoid useless effusion of blood, and therefore, before considering your proposition, ask the terms you will offer on condition of its surrender.
R. E. LEE, GENERAL.
To Gen. R. E. Lee, Commanding C. S. A.:
GENERAL: Your note of last evening in reply to mine of same date, asking the conditions on which I will accept the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, is just received.
In reply, I would say that peace being my first desire, there is but one condition that I insist upon, viz.:
That the men surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms again against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged.
I will meet you, or designate officers to meet any officers you may name, for the same purpose, at any point agreeable to you, for the purpose of arranging definitely the terms upon which the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia will be received.
U. S. GRANT, LIEUT. GENERAL,
COMMANDING ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES.
APRIL 8, 1865
To LIEUT. GEN. U. S. GRANT,
COMMANDING ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES.
APRIL 8, 1865.
GENERAL: I received, at a late hour, your note of to-day, in answer to mine of yesterday.
I did not intend to propose the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, but to ask the terms of your proposition. To be frank, I do not think the emergency has arisen to call for the surrender.
But as the restoration of peace should be the sole object of it all, I desire to know whether your proposals would tend to that end.
I cannot, therefore, meet you with a view to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia, but as far as your proposition may affect the Confederate States forces under my command, and tend to the restoration of peace, I should be pleased to meet you at 10 A.M., to-morrow, on the old stage road to Richmond, between the picket lines of the two armies.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
R.E. LEE,
GENERAL, C.S.A.
To Gen. R. E. Lee, commanding C. S. A.:
GENERAL: Your note of yesterday is received. As I have no authority to treat on the subject of peace, the meeting proposed for 10 A.M. to-day could lead to no good. I will state, however, General, that I am equally anxious for peace with yourself; and the whole North entertain the same feeling. The terms upon which peace can be had are well understood. By the South laying down their arms, they will hasten that most desirable event, save thousands of human lives, and hundreds of millions of property not yet destroyed.
Sincerely hoping that all our difficulties may be settled without the loss of another life, I subscribe myself,
VERY RESPECTFULLY,
YOUR OBEDIENT SERVANT,
U.S. GRANT,
LIEUTENANT GENERAL UNITED STATES ARMY
Thanks to God, the Giver, of Victory.
Honors to Gen. Grant and His Gallant Army.
Two Hundred Guns to be Fired at the Headquarters of Every Army, Department, Post and Arsenal.
First Impressions of Richmond
The Great Conflagration in the City
Who was Responsible for it?
The Libby and Castle Thunder
Suffering for Food
Distribution of Supplies
Lee’s Family
From Our Own Correspondent
RICHMOND, THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 1865.
So many thousand facts are presented to the mind of the visitor here in such a very short space of time, that to record them systematically is almost impossible. The great features of the evacuation, the entrance of our troops, the conflagration, the President’s visit and reception, have already been forwarded to you in detail by our corresondents who came in with troops, and I will, therefore, allude to them only in a general way.
Let me say, though, at the outset, that the best part of the city is a ruin. That the awful fire kindled by the enemy, and which at first promised to consume but a few buildings, was so fanned by the rising wind, that before it could be got under subjection, thirty squares, comprising not less than eight hundred buildings in the very best and most valuable business part of Richmond, were in ashes. What the pecuniary loss is no one can estimate. Nearly all the principal mills, factories, warehouses, stores, banks and insurance offices were destroyed, and the losses being so heavy, the insurance companies, perhaps insolvent already from their countenance of the rebel currency, are now more than bankrupted, and thousands of property owners, computed wealthy in their actual possessions three days ago, are now reduced to beggary. It is among the things easily discernable, that this ruin, wrought by their own friends, to whom they have given all, and to whose tyranny they have submitted, with even cheerfulness, is the cause of far deeper gloom among many than that produced by the loss of the city or the defeat of their army. It is apparent indeed that the transfer of the city to the Union flag was not only not distasteful to a very large portion of the people, many of them among the best classes, but even highly gratifying. No captured city, not even Savannah nor Columbia, can present the ruin apparent here in Richmond. It will carry the painful evidences for half a score of years, and the only thing which will speedily alleviate the dire distress that must prevail, and give the city a chance for a speedy recovery from its present stagnation, is immediate peace. It is Richmond’s only salvation. The origin of the fire and the incendiaries are so well and positively known that no extended investigation on these points is required. It seems that Gen. Lee was not responsible for it, but that Jeff. Davis and his Secretary of War, Breckinridge, were. The destruction of the supplies and the arsenal involved the destruction of the city, and it was so decided by the leading citizens. Gen. EWELL and Maj. CARRINGTON both protested against it in the most earnest manner, as did also a committee of citizens, but BRECKINRIDGE, in reply, exclaimed that he didn’t care a d-m if every house in Richmond was consumed, the warehouse must be burned. Thus this wretched rebel, foisted into a powerful position with no constituents, is responsible for the dreadful ruin, and his master DAVIS is likewise responsible, because he silently countenanced it.
The fire was started in two places, among the supply warehouses near the wharves and at the Danville Depot, where there were 1,500 hogsheads of tobacco belonging to the Confederate Government. This consumed the Danville Depot, also the Petersburgh Depot, and the bridge over the James to Manchester. The famous Libby Prison and Castle Thunder, as I have already informed you, were not burned. They were reserved for a far more appropriate fate. I visited them yesterday, and found Castle Thunder used as a guardhouse for factious and thieving negroes caught in acts of plunder, while the Libby contained 700 rebel prisoners, officers and privates, temporarily shut up together. They looked through the iron gratings with gloomy countenances, while the Union guard outside seemed to richly enjoy the transition that the famous building had undergone, evidently having been there himself. The whirligig of time makes all things even, and the thousands of loyal officers and soldiers who have suffered the tortures and horrors of these dungeons may now contemplate their present users with serene satisfaction, and yet without resentment.
A close inspection of Castle Thunder reveals one of the most hideous dungeons that can be conceived. We failed to see it, however, in all its filth and nastyness, for a strong force of men had been engaged two days in carrying out the accumulation of the past three years. The corporal of the guard who conducted us through pointed out a spot on the floor on one of the main halls, not yet cleaned where the dirt was three inches thick and alive with vermin, and yet on this floor, in this condition, prisoners were obliged to sleep either upon the dirt itself or upon pallets of decaying straw.
But I will not descant further upon this vile relic of the rebellion. Its career is too well known. The prisoners confined here, it will be recollected, were those against whom special vengeance was directed – prisoners of State, persons charged with harboring Union prisoners, Union officers charged with being special blockade-runners, &c. Well has it been said that a confinement in Castle Thunder is a foretaste of the tortures of the damned.
This building, together with the Libby, belongs to the estate of JOHN ENDERS and was leased by the rebel Government. They were originally built for stores, but subsequently turned into tobacco manufactories. But their base uses are now at an end.
This is the fourth day of the Union occupation, and the confusion in the city necessarily attendant upon such an evacuation, and such an occupation, is gradually subsiding. Could the ruins of the fire be removed from sight, Richmond would present an attractive appearance, for it is really a handsome city; but, after all, the saddest scenes are at the headquarters of the Provost-Martial, the Commissioners of Subsistence, and the office of Sanitary Commission, the latter being already established here. Gen. WEITZEL had no sooner established his headquarters here than thousands of citizens besieged him for rations. And as the city is now shut out from all supplies from the country, the crowd of applicants for subsistence is rapidly increasing. This morning there was nothing in the markets but a few small fish caught by negroes. The Capitol, the City Hall and the Capitol-square are filled with a great throng of all classes, condition, sexes and ages, with basket in hand and an appealing expression of face. What the regulations yet are in regard to the issue of rations to the citizens, I do not know, but a limited quantity is being supplied them at present.
VIEW OF FORT CLIFTON, SHOWING THE WATER BATTERY AND OBSTRUCTIONS IN THE APPOMATTOX RIVER (WAUD). LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.
In order to study this peculiar social feature of the rebellion, I mingled with these crowds this morning for a short time, to observe their temper, desires and condition. They were, of course, largely made up of what appeared to be the poorer classes, and many negroes were among them, some for subsistence for themselves and some as servants of families. I found many whose intelligent expression of countenance, fair features and attempted gentility of dress, indicated that they were of the higher classes, on whom the demands of want and hunger were as insatiable as upon those of less position. I noticed several ladies approach the officer in charge at the City Hall, genteely attired, and with their faces so closely veiled as to defy the gaze of the keenest eye. They spoke in such tremulous tones when giving their names as to cause us to suspect their names were as foreign to them as the hunger they now sought to appease had been in days gone by. Many of the wealthiest families, however, who had the means, have far larger supplies of provisions on hand than was consistent with the repeated appeals of Confederate officials for such to spare from their bounty to feed the army.
GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE LEAVING THE MCLEAN HOUSE FOLLOWING HIS SURRENDER TO LIEUTENANT GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT (WAUD). LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.
The exodus of prominent citizens was confined mainly to those connected with the rebel government, and a few who had made themselves very conspicuous in rebel politics – all the rebel Cabinet and their chief assistants, though not much of their clerical force, got away. The preparations for the evacuation began very quietly among the officials. At noon of Sunday the important records of the departments were boxed up and carted to the depot; but very little suspicion was excited among the citizens as to the real state of the case. A strong guard was stationed at the Danville depot, and four trains were got ready, the first of which left, with DAVIS on board, at seven o’clock in the evening, and the last at midnight. DAVIS’ family had gone into the country on the Friday preceeding, but not because of any apprehension that the city was to be given up. Very few families left the city, and there are very few vacant houses – the mansions of JEFF. DAVIS and Gov. BILLY SMITH being among those now in want of tenants. The family of Gen. LEE, consisting of a wife, who is an invalid, and three daughters, are among those who remain. They occupy a stylish house on Franklin street, and for their protection, a well disciplined guard is placed at the dwelling and the family are scrupulously protected from annoyance of any character, the staring gaze of the passer-by hardly being allowed. This is the second time that Mrs. Gen. LEE has been in our hands. She was once captured by our cavalry near White House in 1862, and sent through our lines to Richmond under flag of truce, by order of Gen. MCCLELLAN.
L. L. CROUNSE.
APRIL 11, 1865
Editorials
The New Epoch – The Advent of Peace. This continent quivered yesterday as never since its upheaval from chaos. The lightning flashed peace, and from ocean to ocean, all minds thrilled with the sense of a new order of things. No more deluge of blood. No more whirls of ruin. No more brooding darkness. The republic rested again, and upon foundations as eternal as the hills. The whole heavens were spanned with the rainbow of promise, and every eye saw it.
This tremendous transition has been betokened latterly by many signs, yet its coming was sudden. The terrible trials of the war have weighed so heavily upon the land, and the people have been so often deceived by false appearances, that a confirmed impression existed that the deliverance, if it ever came, would come only with protracted tribulation. Even now, in spite of all we see, it is hard to realize that the rebellion has vanished. But just now it threatened to engulf the nation.
“Glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all blessings are.” If ever a people under heaven was bound to prostrate itself in gratitude, it’s the loyal people of this land. Had it been foretold to them four years ago what trials awaited them, there would have been a universal cry of despairing agony. Human history affords no instance of such a national ordeal. Never could we have endured it but for the strength given from on high, as we had need. The must capacious minds of Europe, schooled to the uttermost limit in all the wisdom of the past, called this war a madness. It was a madness, if estimated by any material standard. Eight millions of AngloSaxon rebels, compacted as one man, brave to the last pitch, inhabiting a country peculiarly defensible, having the encouragement of untiring faction beyond their bounds, and a moral alliance with nearly every power in the Old World, according to all the ordinary rules of judging, would surely prevail. But we had a hidden Strength which the world did not understand. It was Faith – a faith that first broke upon us with the first flash of Sumter’e guns, and that ever afterward went on widening and deepening. The people came to feel as by an inspiration from heaven, that the moral elements of the national cause made it irresistible. They were penetrated with the feeling, that as sure as there was an Almighty Father, He would not permit the success of a rebellion that was made only for the benefit of human slavery. It was this which carried them through the struggle. Ten times their physical strength would not have kept them up, in the absence of this sovereign faith. The race of Titans could not have maintained this war, if, too, they had been a race of atheists.
That religious faith is fitly followed now by a religious gratitude. It is wonderful to mark the solemn character of the joy that now spreads the land. There are waving flags, ringing bells, booming cannon, and other national tokens of public gladness. But yet it is plain to see that the dominant feeling of the people is no ebullient exhilaration over human achievement, but a profound sense of a Divine blessing. The popular heart relieves itself, not so much in cheers and hurrahs as in doxologies. Never since the hosannas of that palm Sunday in Jerusalem has such irrepressible praise rolled up from a city street to the pure vault of heaven as from the great thoroughfare of money-changers in New York at the tidings that the rebel capital had fallen. Yet that was but the key-note of the universal anthem. The enemies of this republic may talk as they please of its materializing tendencies, may to their heart’s content stigmatize our people as worshipers of the “almighty dollar”; they but waste their breath. Business activities, strenuous as they are, have not stilled the religious sentiment of the American heart. This has been demonstrated in ways without number, but never so grandly as now.
With this gratitude for deliverance is mingled a fresh assurance that Heaven has reserved our republic for a destiny more glorious than can yet be conceived. Americans now feel that it is less than ever a presumption in them to believe themselves a chosen people, appointed to school the world to new ideas of human capacities and human rights. The monarchs of the Old World are trembling with apprehension lest we shall be moved to repay our injuries by turning against them our arms. They have a thousand times greater reason to fear the moral force of our new position. We stand a living proof of the matchless potency of popular selfgovernment. It rivets the attention of the whole civilized world. It will start new thoughts, will generate new purposes, will nerve to new acts. This is as sure as that the human reason shall continue to exist. It is this that the dynastics have need to fear; it is here that we expect our sweetest revenge.
The last battle in the Eastern Theater was fought at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, in Appomattox, Virginia. It was the final battle in the Appomattox Campaign, which took place from March to early April 1865.
The principal commanders were Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant commanding the United States forces and Gen. Robert E. Lee leading the Army of Northern Virginia for the Confederate States. The estimated casualties were 700 total with 27,805 Confederate soldiers paroled.
Early on April 9, the remnants of John Brown Gordon’s corps and Fitzhugh Lee’s cavalry formed a line of battle at Appomattox Court House. Gen. Robert E. Lee determined to make one last attempt to escape the closing Union pincers and reach his supplies at Lynchburg. At dawn, the Confederates advanced and initially gained ground against Sheridan’s cavalry. The arrival of Union infantry, however, stopped the advance in its tracks. Lee’s army was now surrounded on three sides. Lee surrendered to Grant on April 9. This was the final engagement of the war in Virginia.
LIEUTENANT GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT (L. PRANG). LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.
