HRRVIOLENTLY WAVING A WHITE TOWEL AS A FLAG of truce, a lone Confederate horseman galloped up to men of the 118th Pennsylvania Infantry near Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, and asked for directions to the headquarters of General Philip Sheridan. The rider was Captain R. M. Sims, who had purchased that towel (inset) in Richmond just days before the Army of Northern Virginia was forced to abandon the Confederate capital. He continued to wave it as he raced deeper into Union lines. Sims carried a message from General John Gordon requesting a truce. He made his way to General George Armstrong Custer, who sent the rider back with the following reply: “We will listen to no terms but that of unconditional surrender.” Lieutenant Colonel Edward Whitaker escorted Sims back to the Confederate lines and then asked to use the towel for his own protection as he returned to Union lines.
The Army of Northern Virginia was in its final hours. In the past few days, as Ulysses Grant’s army closed in on Robert E. Lee, messengers had carried communiqués back and forth between the two commanders. By April 9, Lee and his men were famished, exhausted, and surrounded. “There is nothing left for me to do but to go and see General Grant,” he told his staff that morning, “and I would rather die a thousand deaths.” Generals Grant and Lee agreed to meet that afternoon at the home of Wilmer McLean at Appomattox Court House (overleaf).
Lee arrived there first, wearing a crisp gray uniform and dress sword. Grant entered a half hour later, dressed informally in what he called a “soldier’s blouse,” his boots and pants splattered with mud. Grant’s staff officers crowded the room. The two commanders sat at separate tables and conversed for a while before Lee asked on what terms Grant would “receive the surrender of my army.”
Many Unionists considered Confederates traitors who were responsible for the tremendous loss of lives and property. Lee’s own army had threatened the nation’s capital and had to be driven back in some of the bloodiest battles of the war. But healing the country, rather than vengeance, directed Grant’s actions. There would be no mass imprisonments or executions, no parading of defeated enemies through Northern streets. The terms of surrender amounted to a gentlemen’s agreement: the Confederate forces would return home after surrendering weapons and agreeing “not to take up arms against the Government of the United States.” At Lee’s request, Grant allowed Confederates who owned their own horses to keep them so that they could tend their farms and plant spring crops. Once Lee’s army had surrendered and disbanded, Grant added, its men were “not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside.”
A Union officer copied the terms. Grant then signed the document and passed it to Lee for his signature. Other Southern forces remained in the field, but few would continue fighting when they learned of the outcome at Appomattox. With Lee’s surrender, the war effectively came to an end. HRR
TOKEN OF SURRENDER Lieutenant Colonel Edward Whitaker cut in two the white towel used by Confederate Colonel R. M. Sims to seek a truce at Appomattox. He kept one half and presented the other to General Custer’s wife, Libbie, who later bequeathed it to the Smithsonian.
TROPHIES OF VICTORY While meeting at the McLean home (FIRST IMAGE), Ulysses S. Grant sat beside this table in the leather-padded swivel chair at lower left, and Robert E. Lee sat beside another table in the wicker chair. Surrender terms drafted by Grant (SECOND IMAGE) formed the basis for the document signed by the two commanders. Over McLean’s objections, Grant’s table was taken afterward by General Sheridan, Grant’s chair by Colonel Henry Capehart, and Lee’s chair by Lieutenant Colonel Whitaker. Through successive donations, those trophies were reunited at the Smithsonian by 1936.
