The Confederacy fell on the first Sunday in April. No one knew it then of course. No banner headlines announced it to a joyful Northern populace, and yet it was so. Shortly after a prayer for the President of the Confederacy, offered by the Reverend Dr Charles Minnigerode in the pulpit of St Paul’s Episcopal Church on Grace Street in Richmond, a messenger from the War Department tiptoed down the aisle, and whispered something in Jefferson Davis’ ear. A few hours later, with the dull, booming sound of distant guns in the air, Davis, his cold, stern face expressionless, explained to his Cabinet that Richmond must be evacuated. At eleven that night, the government train moved out in gloomy silence across the James River and headed south for Danville. The next day the Cabinet was reassembled in the home of Major W.T. Sutherlin at 975 Main Street, but it was no more than an empty gesture. It was the end, although Lee and Johnston still had battles before them. The next day the Stars and Stripes flew above the dome of the Capitol.
Petersburg was in ruins, Richmond in flames. Lee and his tatterdemalion army were in retreat towards Amelia courthouse. There was a jubilance in the air at Grant’s headquarters in City Point. President Lincoln, who had come down at Grant’s invitation on March 26 aboard the River Queen said, ‘Do you know, general, I have had a sort of sneaking idea for some days that you intended to do something like this!’
He looked old and sick, Andrew thought. Much older than a man of fifty-six ought to look. Lincoln was thirty-five pounds underweight. He walked like a man with sore feet and did not refuse help in and out of carriages as he once would have done.
‘My intention was never to take Richmond as such, Mr. President,’ Grant said. ‘Nor to defeat Lee in actual battle. I wanted to remove him and his army from the contest, maybe even have him use his influence to get Johnston to surrender. I don’t want him to break and run for the mountains and leave us with a dozen guerrilla armies to fight!’
‘Yes, yes,’ Lincoln said. ‘We must now press for a peaceful end to this thing.’
He toured Richmond for two days, and learned on his return to City Point that Secretary Seward had fallen from his carriage and suffered serious injuries. They had the Washington newspapers.
GRANT
RICHMOND OURS!
Weitzel Entered The Rebel Capital Yesterday Morning
MANY GUNS CAPTURED
Our Troops Received With Enthusiasm!
With the President haunting the headquarters office, Grant began the pursuit. ‘We have Lee’s army pressed hard,’ he wrote to Sherman from Burkesville, ‘He is endeavoring to reach Danville ... I shall press the pursuit to the end. Push Johnston at the same time and let us finish up this job at once.’
He almost had his wish. The two armies collided near Farmville on a tributary of the Appomattox River called Sailer’s Creek, and when the day was done Popeye Ewell’s corps had surrendered along with half of Anderson’s.
At headquarters, Lincoln penned a telegram for Grant.
GEN. SHERIDAN SAYS
‘IF THE THING IS PRESSED I THINK THAT LEE WILL SURRENDER’.
LET THE THING BE PRESSED.
‘Well, Andrew?’ Grant said, passing the telegram across for Andrew to read. ‘What do you say?’
‘What all of us would say, General,’ Andrew replied. ‘Lee must know it’s hopeless, too. Why not put it to him?’
‘I think I will,’ Grant muttered. ‘I think I will.’
‘I’d be grateful if you’d try to get it done as soon as possible, General,’ Andrew grinned. ‘I’ve got an invitation to a wedding on April fifteenth.’
‘A wedding?’ Grant said raising his eyebrows. He looked worn and his unadorned uniform was dusty and stained. But there was a tense anticipation in the man, an eagerness. He had victory in his hands and he knew it. ‘Well, we’ll just have to see if we can’t arrange things to suit.’
He wrote to Lee on the seventh. Lee’s reply was equivocal but encouraging. Meanwhile the armies jockeyed, men died. On Palm Sunday, April 9, Robert E. Lee made one last, bold try at moving his battered, tired men south to join up with Joe Johnston. Coming out of a small valley, his lead regiments saw horsemen on the ridge ahead of them. It was ‘Little Phil’ Sheridan’s cavalry. To the left, blue-clad infantry streamed out of the pines on the road to Appomattox Station: Edward Ord’s Army of the James, supported by the 5th Corps, commanded by the fiery Griffin. Behind Lee lay two more Federal Army corps, Humphreys with the 2nd, Wright with the 6th. Captain Simms of Longstreet’s staff came forward with a flag of truce, which was received by Major-General George Armstrong Custer and sent to the rear. The sun was getting hot. The last shreds of the mist which had veiled the greening swell of the farmland disappeared.
It was over.
How many times will they write about this? Andrew thought, as he watched Grant ride down to the McLean house, where he was to meet Lee. He did not look like a winner. He wore a shabby, field-worn private’s uniform, and he still looked seedy. For the past few days he had been suffering from a severe headache which nothing would shift. Truce flags fluttered all around. Everywhere men stood in groups or lay on the soft spring grass, two mighty armies come to rest at last. General Lee arrived with his secretary, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Marshall. Lee wore his best full-dress uniform. He greeted the officers, waiting below the board steps to the porch of the two-story house, in a grave, sad voice. There were great furrows in his forehead; his eyes were red as if he had been weeping. His cheeks were sunken and haggard, his face devoid of color. He went inside, leaving his orderly to hold his gray horse, Traveller. The orderly took out the horse’s bit and let him crop the grass in the twenty-foot front yard.
Andrew stood waiting, envying the men who had been invited to witness the surrender. One of them was Edward Ord. He clapped Andrew on the back as he went into the house.
‘A long way from the Spokane River, Andrew,’ he said, laughing. Sheridan went in, Custer, Parker, Babcock, Porter, the others. It was very quiet. For the first time in as long as Andrew could remember, there was no sound of cannon.
All at once General Lee appeared, tall, the embroidered belt and dress sword flashing in the sun. Every Federal officer nearby saluted by raising his hat. Lee, no longer in command of the Army of Northern Virginia, no longer in command of anything, returned the salute in the same fashion. He looked out across the fields to where his men were waiting. Then, quite unexpectedly, he stretched his arms to their full length and clapped his hands three times. Traveller’s head came up, startled. The general smiled and came down the steps. As he did Grant emerged from the house. Lee mounted his horse and gathered up the reins. Grant touched his hat. The sad-faced man on the tall gray horse returned the salute, then turned away.
As soon as Lee was out of sight, Grant mounted and returned to headquarters. The officers who had been waiting outside the McLean house crowded in, vying to buy some memento of the surrender from the owner of the house. Wilmer McLean was one of the war’s most astonished men. The battle of First Manassas had been fought in his back yard. He brought his family south to make sure such a terrible thing never happened to them again. Now this: the surrender signed in his living room! Andrew watched Armstrong Custer skipping down the steps with the table on which Grant had drafted the surrender terms. Everyone was shouting, jostling for McLean’s attention.
That day Andrew would always remember. Barefoot Confederates, their clothes no more than tatters, walking alongside Lee’s horse, weeping. A gray-uniformed cavalry officer snapping his saber across his knee. General Grant sitting on a roadside stone, writing out the telegram advising Washington that Lee had surrendered. General Meade, his grave, scholarly face radiant with happiness, shouting to his men with his arms held high in the air, ‘It’s all over, boys! It’s all over!’ Campfires hissing in the light rain that began to fall around midnight. A boy sitting on the grass, his head in his hands, sobbing, the torn colors of his regimental flag lying by his side. Another, no more than fifteen, tugging at his sleeve, and asking, ‘Does this mean we can go home, sir?’
‘Yes, son,’ Andrew said, gently. ‘We’re all going home.’