Sheridan was first off the mark. “I wish you were here,” he wired Grant, who was with Ord’s troops fifteen miles back but coming up fast. “I feel confident of capturing the Army of Northern Virginia if we exert ourselves. I see no escape for Lee.”107 Grant was apparently waiting just for such a summons. He immediately set out across the hostile Virginia countryside with four staff officers and a squad of cavalry for escort. Shortly after 10 P.M. he rode up to Sheridan’s pickets, who were astonished to see the general in chief ride in out of nowhere at that hour of the night.
Encouraged by Grant to press on, Sheridan fell upon Lee’s retreating column the next afternoon at Sayler’s Creek, half a dozen miles from Farmville. It was, as historians have written, the “Black Thursday of the Confederacy.”108 Sheridan dismounted his troopers and led them along with two divisions from Wright’s 6th Corps straight at the distended rebel line, inflicting more than 2,000 casualties while taking 6,000 prisoners and most of Lee’s wagon train. “I attacked . . . and routed them handsomely,” he informed Grant. “If the thing is pressed I think Lee will surrender.”109 Late that night Grant passed Sheridan’s message along to Lincoln, who was waiting for news back at City Point. The president’s reaction can be judged by his response. On the morning of April 7 he telegraphed Grant: “Gen. Sheridan says, ‘If the thing is pressed I think Lee will surrender.’ Let the thing be pressed.”110
Lee won the race to Farmville, but his army was melting away. Reduced by straggling, desertion, and battle casualties to fewer than 15,000 men, the troops barely had time to regroup from the defeat at Sayler’s Creek before pressing on toward Appomattox Junction, a rail stop twenty miles west on the Southside line where trains loaded with food and forage were waiting. The Union army was close behind. Grant reached Farmville Friday afternoon, April 7, on the heels of the rebel rear guard. He had left all of his baggage behind on that night ride to Sheridan and was still wearing the mud-spattered uniform in which he started out. He sat on the porch of the village hotel, watching the men of Wright’s 6th Corps march through town, when a messenger from Sheridan rode in. Little Phil had learned that rations for Lee were waiting at Appomattox Junction and he was hurrying on, confident he could get there first and take possession.
As Grant read the message, Generals Ord and Gibbon came up to ask for instructions.X Without batting an eye, Grant sent them hurrying after Sheridan, intent on heading off Lee while Meade continued the chase. Gibbon remembered that Grant then paused for a moment and, “in his quiet way,” unexpectedly said: “I have a great mind to summon Lee to surrender.”111 He seemed as surprised as his listeners by the thought, but immediately called for his dispatch book—a bound book of flimsy yellow paper with black sheets of carbon between the pages—and began to write, dating the message at Farmville, April 7, 1865.
General R. E. Lee
Commanding C. S. Army
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.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant General
Commanding Armies of the United States112
Brigadier General Seth Williams, who had been Lee’s adjutant at West Point and who was now Grant’s inspector general, was entrusted to deliver the message and Grant settled down to wait. As night fell and the men of the 6th Corps continued to march up the street, they spotted Grant on the veranda, his cigar glowing in the shadows. As in the Wilderness, when he had ordered the army to move south, the troops broke into cheers as they passed, spontaneously saluting the man who had brought them to the eve of victory.
Lee received Grant’s message about 10 P.M. Longstreet was with him at the time. Lee opened the envelope himself, read the letter silently, and then passed it to his lieutenant. “Not yet,” said Old Pete. Lee made no reply, but took up a single sheet of ruled note paper and began to write.
7th Apl.’65
Genl
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.113
Lee was not ready to surrender, but he did not want to break off negotiations. It was well after midnight when Seth Williams returned to Farmville with Lee’s reply. Grant was awakened, read the message, and decided there was nothing to be done until morning. He rose early, however, and rode forward so that further correspondence with Lee could go through the lines with the least delay. Like his Confederate counterpart Grant wanted to keep the ball rolling. His answer was conciliatory. “Peace being my great desire,” he wrote, “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.” This was a far cry from the unconditional surrender Grant demanded at Donelson and Vicksburg. Now he was saying that once the Confederates laid down their arms they would be free to go, as Lincoln wished, back to their homes and farms with the war behind them. The terms were as generous as Grant could make them, and he went out of his way to spare Lee embarrassment, adding considerately: “I will meet you, or will 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.”114
Lee did not receive Grant’s message until late in the afternoon of the 8th. There was no fighting to speak of that day, and the remnants of Lee’s exhausted army went into bivouac that evening near Appomattox Court House, just five miles from the trains laden with supplies waiting at the junction. The next day Lee planned to reprovision his forces and, if possible, move south to complete the linkup with Johnston, and if not, continue westward along the rail line to Lynchburg. It was in that frame of mind that he replied to Grant’s letter. Denying that he had proposed surrender in his previous response, or that his army was in such dire peril, Lee said only that he would be willing to meet between the lines for a general discussion that might “tend to a restoration of peace.”115
Grant, who was sometimes beset by psychosomatic ailments in the hours leading up to major events, was suffering from a severe migraine and had gone to bed when Lee’s message was delivered. He studied the document and once again decided to answer it the next morning. “It looks like Lee means to fight,” he said, more saddened than angered by what he read.116 What Grant knew, and Lee did not, was that Sheridan had reached Appomattox Junction just before dusk, capturing four freight trains loaded with Confederate rations and driving off three more. Sheridan said he had taken a gun park crammed with reserve artillery and a considerable number of prisoners, and that he was dug in athwart the Lynchburg road, blocking Lee’s escape. Ord’s Army of the James and Griffin’s 5th Corps were following close behind Sheridan. “If they can get up tonight we will perhaps finish the job in the morning,” said Little Phil.117
Palm Sunday, April 9, 1865, dawned bright and sunny. Grant rose early, took his morning coffee at Meade’s headquarters, and then framed his reply to Lee. Knowing that his quarry had been driven to ground, Grant once again held out an olive branch. He declined to meet Lee between the lines for a general discussion, an area Lincoln had warned him not to enter, but renewed his plea for an end to the fighting. By laying down their arms now, he said, the South could have peace. There were no further conditions. “Seriously hoping that all our difficulties may be settled without the loss of another life, I subscribe myself, etc. U. S. Grant, Lieutenant General.”118 As best he could, Grant was keeping the door ajar, allowing Lee time to adjust to the situation created by Sheridan’s arrival at Appomattox Junction.
For Lee, Palm Sunday was a day of increasing disappointment. Reduced to little more than 12,000 combat effectives, with only sixty-one guns remaining, his only hope was to punch through Sheridan’s line and escape. Again, it was John B. Gordon to whom he turned, believing that if anyone could lead a breakout it was the hard-fighting general from Georgia. Gordon did his best. He hit Sheridan’s dismounted troopers at dawn and sent them reeling. But then, as he watched the cavalrymen scamper to safety reality stared him in the face. There in the rear of the gap his troops had torn in Sheridan’s line stood long rows of Union infantry, rank upon rank, braced and waiting. It was Ord and Griffin, with close to 15,000 men apiece. They had arrived in the early morning hours and were ready to repel any attack. Gordon saw the situation was hopeless. At 7:30 he pulled back and informed Lee that he could do nothing further.
Lee received the message calmly. If a general like Gordon could not break through, the fight was over. “There is nothing left for me to do but go and see General Grant,” Lee told his staff, “and I would rather die a thousand deaths.”119 A subordinate suggested an alternative. The men would take to the woods and fight as guerrillas. “No,” said Lee. “We must consider the effect on the country as a whole. Already it is demoralized by four years of war. If I took your advice, the men would be without rations and under no control of officers. They would be compelled to rob and steal in order to live. They would become mere bands of marauders, and the enemy’s cavalry would pursue them and overrun many sections they may never have occasion to visit. We would bring on a state of affairs it would take the country years to recover from.”120
Lee headed out to meet Grant shortly before nine. He was accompanied by an orderly bearing a flag of truce—a soiled white handkerchief, tied to a stick—and his military secretary, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Marshall, grandson of the great chief justice. The three horsemen had gone little more than half a mile when they met a Union officer, also under a flag of truce, bearing the message Grant had written that morning. Lee, who had assumed the meeting he had requested the previous evening was still in place, was startled by Grant’s reply and initially feared that the general in chief, now that he had the Confederate army virtually surrounded, intended to impose harsher conditions. Lee’s misgivings were heightened when the rumble of artillery, marking Meade’s advance, sounded from the front. Yet he had no alternative. He dictated the following message to Marshall:
April 9th, 1865
General,
I received your note this morning on the picket line, whither I had come to meet you and ascertain definitely what terms were embraced in your proposal of yesterday with reference to the surrender of this army. I now ask an interview in accordance with the offer contained in your letter of yesterday for that purpose.121
Lee signed the letter in a large, bold hand, and sent Marshall forward to arrange a cease-fire while the message was being delivered. That proved easier said than done. Both Meade and Sheridan were moving forward for what they knew would be the final assault of the war and neither wanted to back off, lest the rebel army escape. Accordingly, Lee wrote out a second message to Grant requesting a suspension of hostilities until the terms of surrender could be established.122 Marshall gave the letter to Meade, who reluctantly ordered an informal cease-fire until Lee could get in touch with Grant, and at five minutes after eleven on Palm Sunday the Union guns went silent.
Grant was riding toward Sheridan when Lee’s first message was delivered. It was then close to noon. Grant dismounted and read the letter, sitting on a grassy knoll by the roadside. Later he wrote that the migraine from which he was suffering disappeared immediately.123 Grant asked for his dispatch book and dashed off a quick reply. He told Lee where he was and said he would “push forward to the front for the purpose of meeting you.” The message was entrusted to Grant’s aide Lieutenant Colonel Orville Babcock, who was told to escort Lee to whatever site he chose.124
It took Babcock thirty minutes to reach Lee. When he rode up, he found him sitting on a blanket-covered pile of fence rails, talking to Longstreet. Lee was concerned, Longstreet later reported, that Grant might demand stiffer terms. Old Pete did not think so. He told Lee that he had known Grant intimately before the war, and he believed he would impose only such terms as Lee himself would if the roles were reversed.125
Lee sat up when Babcock dismounted, and then rose to greet him.XI After digesting the contents of Grant’s note, he sent Marshall ahead to select a suitable meeting place. Then he set out with Babcock alongside and his orderly, Sergeant George Tucker, ahead. At a stream, Lee paused to let Traveller drink, and then rode on to the little village of Appomattox Court House, where Colonel Marshall had found a first-floor parlor room in the house of Wilmer McLean, on the south side of the road to Lynchburg. In a curious quirk of fate, McLean had owned a farm near Manassas in 1861 and a shell had come crashing through one of his windows during the opening skirmish of the war. He promptly sold the farm and moved to Appomattox, a remote hamlet in southern Virginia, which he assumed was of no military value to either side. The war he fled was now about to end on his doorstep; in fact, in his front room, where Lee, Marshall, and Babcock now awaited Grant’s arrival.
Half an hour passed. Colonel Marshall recalled that “we talked in the most friendly and affable way.”126 About 1:30 there was a clatter of hoofbeats in the road, and a minute or so later Babcock saw Grant coming up the steps to the porch, followed by Ord, Sheridan, Rawlins, and assorted staff officers. Grant came in alone. He was wearing the same mud-spattered uniform he wore on the ride to see Sheridan two nights before: a government-issue flannel shirt with trousers tucked into muddy boots, no side arms, not even spurs, the only sign of rank being the tarnished shoulder straps pinned to his blouse. Colonel Marshall thought “he looked as though he had had a pretty hard time.” Colonel Amos Webster of Grant’s staff put it less charitably, recalling that “Grant, covered with mud in an old faded uniform, looked like a fly on a shoulder of beef.”127
The generals greeted each other cordially. Grant took a chair in the middle of the room and Lee resumed his seat by an unlit fire, while Marshall remained standing beside him. “What General Lee’s feelings were I do not know,” Grant said later. “As he was a man of much dignity, with an impassive face, it was impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the end had finally come, or felt sad over the result, and was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings, they were entirely concealed from my observation; but my own feelings, which had been quite jubilant on the receipt of his letter, were sad and depressed. I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly.”128 The two men chatted easily for a few minutes, recalling the time they met in Mexico, after which Babcock ushered in Sheridan, Ord, and Rawlins, as well as a number of other Union officers. The newcomers arranged themselves behind Grant as quietly as swords and spurs would permit. Grant made no reference to their coming. Lee showed no resentment at their presence.129
Presently, Lee brought the conversation around to the subject they had been avoiding. “I suppose, General Grant, that the object of our present meeting is fully understood. I asked to see you to ascertain upon what terms you would receive the surrender of my army.” Grant responded quietly, with no visible change of expression. “The terms I propose are those stated substantially in my letter of yesterday,—that is, the officers and men who are surrendered are to be paroled and disqualified from taking up arms again until properly exchanged, and all arms, ammunition, and supplies to be delivered up as captured property.”
Like Grant, Lee continued to mask his feelings, but inwardly he certainly breathed a sigh of relief: Longstreet had been right and his own fears had been groundless. He told Grant the conditions were more or less what he expected. The conversation then drifted into unrelated matters until Lee once again returned to the subject at hand. Speaking with the understated courtesy of a man fifteen years Grant’s senior, he asked that the terms be written out “so that they may be formally acted upon.” Grant immediately agreed and called for his dispatch book, which he opened flat on the small round marble-topped table in front of him. He lit his cigar, puffed furiously for a minute or so, waved the smoke aside and began to write. “When I put my pen to paper I did not know the first word I should make use of in writing the terms,” Grant said later. “I only knew what was in my mind, and I wished to express it clearly so there could be no mistaking it.” He did just that. Writing rapidly, he brought the war in Virginia to a close with less than 200 well-chosen words, reflecting the charity that Lincoln desired and his own innate generosity. Officers were to give their individual paroles not to take up arms against the government of the United States until properly exchanged, and were to sign paroles for the men of their commands. Artillery and small arms were to be parked 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 paroles and the laws in force where they reside.” By adding the final two sentences, Grant was taking a massive step toward reconciliation. Not only was the military dignity of his opponents being respected, but there would be no imprisonment or captivity. More important, there would be no trials or witch hunts. Strictly speaking, the rebels had committed treason. But Grant’s last sentence, written on his own initiative, effectively pardoned all who surrendered. It was a general amnesty, which, he hoped, would free the country from reprisals and vengeance.
When he was finished, Grant walked over to Lee and handed him the dispatch book. “General, is that satisfactory?” Lee read the document carefully. His expression did not change until he reached the closing sentence. He looked up and said warmly, “This will have a very happy effect upon my army.” Grant asked if he wished to make any changes before an official copy was prepared for signing. Lee hesitated. Then he said the Confederate cavalrymen and artillery soldiers owned their horses. Would they be permitted to retain them? This came as a surprise to Grant. He told Lee that as written, the terms did not permit it. Only the officers were allowed to take their private property. Lee read the document again. “No, I see the terms do not allow it; that is clear.”
Grant responded sympathetically. He knew what Lee wanted, and he would not humiliate him by forcing him to ask for a modification of terms that were already generous. “I did not know that any private soldiers owned their own animals, but I think this will be the last battle of the war—I sincerely hope so—and I take it that most of the men in the ranks are small farmers, and as the country has been so raided by the two armies, it is doubtful whether they will be able to put in a crop to carry themselves and their families through the next winter without the aid of the horses they are now riding. I will arrange it this way: I will not change the terms as now written, but I will instruct the officers I shall appoint to receive the paroles to let all the men who claim to own a horse or mule to take the animals home with them to work their little farms.”
Lee was appreciative. “This will have the best possible effect upon the men. It will be very gratifying and will do much toward conciliating our people.” Waiting for the final documents to be prepared, Lee told Grant that his army was without rations and had been living on parched corn for the past few days. Grant said he would supply whatever food Lee needed. “Suppose I send over 25,000 rations, do you think that will be a sufficient supply?” Lee agreed that it would. “And it will be a great relief, I assure you.”
It was close to four o’clock when the documents were completed. Lee rose, shook hands with Grant once more, and went out onto the porch where several Federal officers sprang to their feet and saluted. He put on his hat to return their salutes, walked down the steps and waited for Traveller to be brought up. Lee mounted slowly and with an audible sigh. At that moment Grant came down the steps on his way to where Jeff Davis was tethered. Stopping suddenly, he removed his hat in salute, as did the officers with him. Silently, Lee raised his own hat in return, and passed out through the gate and down the road.130
Grant did not pause to celebrate, and he halted the firing of victory salutes. “The war is over,” he told his staff. “The rebels are our countrymen again.”131 He then wrote out a telegram to Secretary Stanton:
General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia this afternoon on terms proposed by myself. The accompanying additional correspondence will show the conditions fully.
U.S. GRANT, LIEUTENANT GENERAL132
The next day Grant met Lee between the lines for an informal conversation. Sitting on their horses, in sight of the two armies, the two generals conversed for more than an hour. Grant suggested among other things that Lee go to Washington and meet President Lincoln to help restore peace. Lee respectfully declined,XII and Grant departed that afternoon for City Point and the capital.
The surrender ceremony took place two days later, when the Army of Northern Virginia formed up for the last time to stack their weapons, furl their flags, and leave for home. The Union officer in charge was Major General Joshua L. Chamberlain, former colonel of the 20th Maine, a twice-wounded veteran who had won the Medal of Honor for his tenacious defense of the Federal flank at Little Round Top at Gettysburg. Two Union brigades were drawn up in double ranks facing each other on opposite sides of the street, leaving space for the Southerners to pass between. The long blue lines were dressed and straight, the troops in full kit, bayonets fixed, and standing at attention. The Confederate column was led by Lieutenant General John B. Gordon of Georgia, Lee’s most resolute corps commander, “riding with heavy spirit and downcast face.” First in line of march behind him was the Stonewall Brigade, five regiments containing 210 ragged survivors of four years of war. As Gordon approached, Chamberlain gave a brief order and a bugle sounded. Instantly the Union line from right to left, regiment by regiment in succession, shifted from order arms to carry arms, the marching salute. Hearing the familiar snap and rattle of the muskets, Gordon looked up in surprise, caught the meaning, and wheeled to face Chamberlain, “making himself and his horse one uplifted figure, with profound salutation as he dropped the point of his sword to his boot toe.”133 Gordon then turned and ordered each Confederate brigade to march past the Union troops at carry arms, honor answering honor, a soldier’s mutual salutation and farewell. In perfect order, the men stacked arms and cartridge boxes and laid down their flags. General Gordon, his eyes moist, addressed the men from horseback, urging them to depart in peace, to obey the laws and work for the future of the united nation.XIII
I. After the war, General Porter Alexander, artillery commander of the Confederate 1st Corps, wrote that Lee’s army did not “fully comprehend” the strength of Grant’s position initially. “But already the character of the operations removed all risks of serious future catastrophe. However bold we might be, however desperately we might fight, we were sure in the end to be worn out. It was only a question of a few months, more or less. We were unable to see it at once. But there soon began to spring up a chain of permanent works, the first of which were built upon our original lines captured by the skirmishers the first afternoon, and these works, impregnable to assault, finally decided our fate when, on the next March 25, we put them to the test.” Edward Porter Alexander, Military Memoirs of a Confederate 557–558 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1910).
II. Despite the fact that they had been carefully rehearsed for the assignment, Meade had no confidence in Ferrero’s troops. Grant felt differently, but provided cover for Meade in later testimony before the congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War. “If we put the colored troops in front and [the attack] should prove a failure, it would then be said . . . that we were shoving these people ahead to get killed because we did not care anything about them.” William H. Powell, “The Battle of the Petersburg Crater,” 4 Battles and Leaders of the Civil War 548, Clarence C. Buel and Robert U. Johnson, eds. (New York: Century, 1888).
III. The reference is to Wilkins Micawber, a character in Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield, who lived in poverty while waiting for “something to turn up,” a Dickensian phrase indicating unrealistic optimism.
IV. On August 23 Lincoln wrote a personal memorandum acknowledging the probability of his defeat, and at the cabinet meeting that day he asked each member to sign the back, sight unseen, pledging the administration’s acceptance of the people’s verdict and its support for the president elect. Lincoln’s memorandum stated:
This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be reëlected. Then it will be my duty to coöperate with the President-elect as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards.
A. LINCOLN
7 The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln 514, Roy P. Basler, et al., eds. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1955).
V. In his Memoirs Grant said he realized that he had to see Sheridan personally if he wanted action. “I knew it was impossible for me to get orders through Washington to Sheridan to make a move, because they would be stopped there and such orders as Halleck’s caution (and that of the Secretary of War) would suggest would be given instead, and would, no doubt, be contradictory to mine.” (Stanton exercised absolute control over the military telegraph lines and all messages from Grant to commanders in the field passed through his hands. Delays and alterations of the text were not unheard of.) 2 Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant 327 (New York: Charles L. Webster 1886).
VI. Read added eight miles to the distance Sheridan traveled, although subsequent historians estimate that Rienzi covered seventy-five miles that day, mostly at a gallop, carrying Sheridan along the Union lines. The jet black gelding was aided by the fact that Sheridan weighed no more than 120 pounds, boots and spurs included. Three days after the battle, Sheridan renamed his mount Winchester to commemorate the exploit. Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History of the American People 694 note (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965).
VII. The popular vote divided 2,203,831 for Lincoln, 1,797,019 for McClellan. The military vote that was counted separately went 119,754 for the president, 34,291 for the challenger. State by state the results were closer than the aggregate figures suggest. Lincoln carried Connecticut by a mere 2,000 votes and New York by less than 7,000.
VIII. On July 17, 1864, Jefferson Davis, dissatisfied with the way the war was going in Georgia, relieved Joseph E. Johnston as commander of the Army of Tennessee and replaced him with thirty-three-year-old John Bell Hood. Johnston had conducted a cautious campaign, delaying Sherman but avoiding pitched battles as much as possible. Hood, pugnacious and impetuous, took on the Union army and was whipped decisively at Peachtree Creek, Ezra Church, Jonesborough, and on the outskirts of Atlanta. All lion and no fox, said Lee dismissively, when he learned of Hood’s appointment. The Wartime Papers of R. E. Lee 821–22, Clifford Dowdey, ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1961).
IX. When Sherman initially suggested his plan, some of Grant’s staff urged the general in chief to instruct him to hold a council of war with his commanders and discuss the alternatives. “No,” said Grant. “I will not direct anyone to do what I would not do myself. I never held what might be called councils of war and I do not believe in them. They create divided responsibility, and at times prevent that unity of action so necessary in the field. Some officers will in all likelihood oppose any plan that is adopted; and when it is put into execution, such officers may, by their arguments in opposition, have so far convinced themselves that the movement will fail that they cannot enter upon it with enthusiasm. . . . I believe it is better for a commander to consult his generals informally, get their views and opinions, and then make up his mind what action to take, and act accordingly.” Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant 316 (New York: Century, 1897).
X. By April 1865, Grant had quietly replaced all of the senior commanders in Virginia except for Meade. As has been mentioned, Ord succeeded Butler commanding the Army of the James; Charles Griffin replaced Warren leading the 5th Corps (Warren was relieved by Sheridan at Five Forks); Hancock, disabled by his Gettysburg wounds, was superseded by Meade’s chief of staff, A. A. Humphreys, at the 2nd Corps; Wright had taken the place of Sedgwick with the 6th Corps; Parke replaced Burnside with the 9th Corps; and John Gibbon took Baldy Smith’s place commanding the 24th Corps. Those changes, plus the advent of Sheridan, went a long way toward remedying the leadership deficiencies under which the Union army struggled in the spring of 1864.
XI. Babcock was struck by the fact that Lee was in full dress, wearing a new gray uniform, his boots highly polished, a red silk sash gathered about his waist, over which he had buckled a splendid sword with an ornate hilt and scabbard. Though he was always immaculately turned out, this was not Lee’s customary field attire. Babcock did not inquire, but when a rebel staffer had commented earlier on his finery, Lee replied: “I have probably to be General Grant’s prisoner, and thought I must make my best appearance.” Babcock manuscript, “Lee’s Surrender,” Orville Babcock Papers, Chicago Historical Society; Douglas Southall Freeman, 4 R. E. Lee: A Biography 118 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1934).
XII. Colonel Marshall, to whom Lee spoke after meeting with Grant, quotes Lee as saying: “General Grant, you know that I am a soldier of the Confederate army, and cannot meet Mr. Lincoln.” Marshall added that in his view, “I have always thought that if General Lee and Mr. Lincoln could have met as General Grant proposed, we could have had immediate restoration of peace and brotherhood among the people of these States.” Colonel Charles Marshall, An Aide-de-Camp of Lee 275 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1927).
XIII. John B. Gordon returned to Georgia and was elected three times to the United States Senate and served two terms as governor. Chamberlain returned to Maine, served four successive terms as governor, and was president of Bowdoin College from 1871 to 1883. They never met again.