The staffs of Robert Lee, Longstreet and Gordon slept in a dense woodland without blankets or tents. The wagons were lost, most of them burned. The officers lay under their coats, heads on saddles, their feet to the campfires.
Colonel Charles Marshall, the Baltimore lawyer of Lee’s staff, fell asleep soon after midnight. Marshall was Lee’s literary aide; he had composed many of the famous orders and addresses of the war, revealing the talent of his legendary family, one of whom was Chief Justice John Marshall. The colonel suffered from extreme myopia, and since he was helpless without his thick spectacles, wore them in sleep. He soon pulled the cape of his overcoat around his head to shut out the chill, but not even that deadened the sounds of the hungry horses, gnawing bark from trees.
Within an hour Marshall sat up, listening intently. Troops marched in a nearby road, perhaps Federal infantry, since the position was almost surrounded. Marshall’s doubts were soon dispelled. The men began chanting a Texas version of a scriptural parody—they were from the remnant of John Hood’s brigade:
“The race is not to them that’s got
The longest legs to run,
Nor the battle to that people
That shoots the biggest gun.”
Headquarters broke camp. There was nothing to do but to put on hats and to saddle horses, though a few of the younger officers made an emergency meal. Someone found a tin shaving can, and water was soon boiling. An officer produced a bit of corn meal and, as Marshall wrote:
“Each man in his turn, according to rank and seniority, made a can of corn meal gruel, and was allowed to keep the can until the gruel became cool enough to drink. General Lee, who reposed as we had done … did not, as I remember, have even such refreshment. This was our last meal in the Confederacy.”
By the time this meal was over, infantry was moving up in earnest, pressing through the courthouse village in the effort to break through enemy lines.
General Pendleton reported to Lee to tell him of his narrow escape of the night before, when he had jumped his horse over a fence and skirted the village to avoid the enemy. He was shocked by Lee’s appearance at the campfire this morning, “dressed in his neatest style, new uniform, snowy linen.” It was the only uniform left to the commander.
“I’ll probably have to be General Grant’s prisoner,” Lee said, “and I thought I must make my best appearance.”
At Lee’s urging that he get some rest, Pendleton left headquarters; the thought crossed his mind that Lee might be dressing himself for death. Pendleton recalled Lee’s headlong charge toward the enemy long ago, in The Wilderness, when soldiers had seized Traveller’s bridle and taken him rearward.
Robert Lee mounted Traveller and went toward the village. It was near 3 A.M. In his front, strung about the village, were 5,000 of Gordon’s infantry; in the rear, Longstreet commanded perhaps 3,000. Thousands more wandered nearby, an unarmed mob seeking food.
Dr. Claiborne left his bed in the thickets in the first light and sought the army. With the survivors of his hospital train, Drs. Hume Field and Richard Lewis, he approached a horseman who sat with a big Navy revolver across his saddle. Claiborne walked within ten yards of the trooper:
“We’re friends,” he said. “Only three lost Confederate surgeons. Which way are Lee’s lines?”
The horseman waved them ahead with his pistol, but when they moved Claiborne heard the cocking of the pistol, and saw that the rider’s uniform was blue.
“About face, march,” the Federal said. They turned and shambled back, the horseman riding near Claiborne, and the pistol bobbing near the doctor’s head.
“Sergeant, you’ll shoot me presently.”
“I don’t care a damn if I do,” the rider said cheerfully.
“I care very particularly,” Claiborne said, but the weapon did not move until the doctor presented a bribe:
“Sergeant, those are poor spurs you’re wearing, for so fine a trooper. I have a beautiful pair in my pocket, taken from the old Merrimac you people sunk in the Gosport Navy Yard. If you’ll let me stop I’ll make you a present of them.”
The rider took the spurs and put his pistol away, leading the party toward Federal lines. Claiborne looked ruefully at the spurs, which he had owned since he was “playing soldier” in trenches below Norfolk at the opening of the war; he had removed them from his boots last night to hide them in case of capture.
They passed a big frame building resembling a country church, where a Federal officer was surrounded by staff and couriers. Claiborne recognized General Sheridan:
“He was splendidly mounted, and a number of his officers, all well-dressed and with caparisoned steeds, presented quite a different appearance from our poor, broken cavalry.”
Sheridan called to the Confederate physicians: “Now, boys, you’re going to see something grand.”
Bluecoat cavalry went toward the Confederate lines, where firing had broken out. The enemy’s infantry called obscenities and jeered at the troopers, Claiborne noted, just as in the Confederate army.
“Oh, you’ll be back pretty soon,” an infantryman yelled to the cavalry. It was an accurate prediction, for the horsemen came swarming back a few minutes later, riding “pellmell” to the rear.
Claiborne was hurried to the rear with other prisoners.
“We met the Yankee infantry advancing—and such numbers! They seemed to come out of the ground. We had to give them the road to let them pass.”
Since three o’clock Gordon’s corps had been stumbling toward Appomattox Court House, and at the first graying of dawn had spread through the village. Captain J. C. Gorman, the North Carolinian, passed with his men, threading the trains of wagons and artillery. He saw a strange tableau in Appomattox:
“The whole cavalry force drawn up in mass, and the troopers apparently asleep mounted. The fields, gardens and streets of the village were strewn with troops, bivouacking in line of battle.”
The column marched west of the village and sharpshooters went out. The fog lay heavily below them, and visibility was poor. Gorman was startled.
“The careless positions of things did not seem alarming, and I was not prepared to believe an enemy was so close, when the picket informed us that the Yankees were in that woods, some 200 yards in front.”
Bryan Grimes was a thirty-six-year-old North Carolinian who had been a Brigadier General for six weeks, a square-faced man with eyes set far apart, and penciled brows, a fiery commander determined to die before surrender. This morning he led the front division of Gordon’s corps. He wrote of his movements:
“I had my command aroused and passed through the town of Appomattox Courthouse before daylight, where, upon the opposite side of the town, I found the enemy in my front.… I reconnoitered and waited the arrival of General Gordon for instruction, who, a while before day, accompanied by General Fitz Lee, came to my position, when we held a council of war.”
“Nothing out there but cavalry,” Gordon said. “Fitz, you should give them a go.”
Fitz Lee studied the distant figures through his glasses and shook his head. “Infantry,” he said. “I can’t budge them. Your boys will have to attack.”
Grimes fretted as the two argued.
“They discussed the matter so long that I became impatient, and said it was somebody’s duty to attack, and that immediately.”
Grimes volunteered, “We can drive them from that crossroads, where you want the wagon train to go, and I’ll try it.”
“Well, drive them off,” Gordon said.
“I can’t do it with my division alone. I need help.”
“You can take the whole corps,” Gordon said.
Fitz Lee led his cavalry toward the enemy flank. Grimes rode to his left a short distance and gave orders to General James A. Walker, who had the remnants of Jubal Early’s old division. Skirmishers were already firing, and artillery began to echo through the village, adding black clouds to the mists. Far ahead, behind rails where the enemy lay, winking lights signaled the opening of a fight.
Grimes rode into the open. The enemy’s artillery saluted him:
“I remember well the appearance of the shell,” Grimes wrote, “and how directly they came towards me, exploding and completely enveloping me in smoke. I then gave the signal to advance.”
His infantry went out briskly, over the enemy breastworks, driving blue figures to the rear. Men came back with prisoners, and a party dragged in two Federal guns. Some of the prisoners had a chilling message: On the flank lay the whole Army of The James, some 10,000 of General Ord’s veterans, ready to strike. Grimes reacted as if the war had only begun:
“Halting my troops, I placed the skirmishers, commanded by Colonel J. R. Winston, 45th North Carolina, in front, about 100 yards distant … I placed Cox’s brigade, which occupied the right of the division, at right angles to the other troops, to watch that flank.… I then sent an officer to General Gordon, announcing our success, and that the Lynchburg road was open for the escape of the wagons, and that I awaited orders.”
Gordon watched from a position in rear, and took little comfort from the quavering of Rebel Yells as his men drove the Federals:
“I discovered a heavy column of Union infantry coming from the right and upon my rear. I gathered around me my sharpshooters, who were now held for such emergencies, and directed Colonel Thomas H. Carter to turn all his guns upon the advancing column. It was held at bay by his shrapnel.”
Almost immediately a Federal cavalry column appeared on a hillside, ready to strike between Gordon and Longstreet.
In the moment Gordon saw the new threat he was approached by Colonel Charles Venable of Lee’s staff:
“General Lee wants to know if you can cut a way through.”
“Tell General Lee I’ve fought my corps to a frazzle, and I can do nothing unless Longstreet can support me.”
Venable disappeared, and Gordon sent Grimes an order to withdraw. Grimes refused to obey. He wrote:
“He continued to send me order after order to the same effect, which I still disregarded, being under the impression that he did not comprehend our favorable location.”
He at last got a command to pull back from Lee himself, and gave orders to General Cox:
“Hold your line right here, and keep the men down. Don’t show one man until we have pulled the rear line back a hundred yards or more. Then fall back to protect us.”
The enemy came forward as Grimes retreated, but broke back into the woods as Cox’s men rose from hiding and fired. The gray division withdrew unmolested and the field became quieter.
Grimes found Gordon:
“Where shall I form my line?”
“Anywhere you choose.”
“What does that mean?”
“We’re going to be surrendered.”
Grimes shouted angrily, “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have got away. I’m going to tell my men. I’ll take them with me.”
Gordon took Grimes by the shoulder: “Are you going to desert the army and tarnish your honor as a soldier? It will be a reflection on General Lee and an indelible disgrace.”
“All right,” Grimes said. “All right. I’ll tell them nothing.”
When he reached the infantry, however, men swarmed around Grimes. “General, are we surrendered?”
“I’m afraid it’s so.”
One man tossed away his musket and yelled, “Blow Gabriel, blow! My God, let him blow! I’m ready to die.”
Trooper E. M. Boykin was awake early, and one of his first thoughts was that spring had come: “The oak trees were covered with their long yellow tassels.” The South Carolina horsemen saw enemy troops swarming over the valley beyond them, but calmly built fires. Boykin wrote:
“They all seemed to have something to eat, and to be amusing themselves eating it.… We waited for the performance to commence. You would not have thought that there was anything special in the situation. They all turned all the responsibility over to the officers, who in turn did the same to those above them—the captain to the colonel, the colonel to the brigadier, and so on.”
It was late before Boykin and his men went into action:
“The blue jackets showed in heavy masses on the edge of the woods. General Gary, riding up, put everything that had a horse in the saddle, and moved us down the hill, just on the edge of the little creek that is here the Appomattox, to wait under cover until wanted.
“I then lay down, with my head, like the luxurious Highlander, upon a smooth stone, and, holding my horse’s bridle in my hand, was soon in the deep sleep of a tired man. But not for long, for down came the General in his most emphatic manner.”
Gary yelled, “Mount, men, mount!” Boykin jumped up, still half asleep, and got into his saddle.
“I found myself maneuvering my horse with his rear in front. We soon had everything in its right place, and rode out from the bottom into the open field, about 250 strong, to see the last of it.”
There was sharp infantry fighting beyond them, and Boykin saw that they were already almost surrounded by Federal cavalry.
The Virginia cavalryman, John Bouldin, started awake at the first cannon shot, and with his companions waited in their woodland hiding place until Rooney Lee came up with his staff. The order came down the line: “Mount! Form fours! Forward, march!”
They trotted to a field, across which were two enemy cannon at the edge of a pine grove. Infantry supported the guns.
Bouldin wrote: “Across the field we dashed right up to the guns, shooting the gunners and support down with our Colt’s Navies. Just as our colors were planted on the guns, out of the woods on our left flank came a regiment of Yankee cavalry in fine style. With empty pistols and disorganized as we were, every man wheeled his horse to the left, and we drew sabers and went at them with steel.… We soon sent them back in great confusion.…
“Our attention was now called again to the infantry, who had abandoned their works and fallen back and from behind trees were picking our boys off their horses. One dash was sufficient. We rode through their camp just in rear of their guns. They were preparing breakfast.”
Bouldin passed cooking ham and eggs and beefsteak and caught the odor of real coffee boiling in cans. He overcame a powerful temptation to fall out of the charge. The riders rounded up several hundred prisoners and dragged back two captured Napoleon guns. Bouldin captured four men at one time.
These men of the 9th and 14th Virginia Cavalry had hardly returned to the village, however, before the end came for them: “The Yankees soon rounded us up, took our guns and prisoners, and sent over to us wagonloads of bacon, hard-tack, and some sure-enough coffee, which I hadn’t tasted for four long years.”
Other cavalrymen at the front thought that they made the final charge on the enemy. Colonel Magnus Thompson, of Elijah White’s 35th Virginia Battalion, stood in battle line with his command near a swamp until after sunrise. Colonel White rode up with stunning news: The army was about to be surrendered, and General Rosser would take his army through the lines to escape. Rosser had them moved forward half a mile, where these riders were waiting when Gordon’s fight erupted. Thompson wrote:
“Rosser now put White’s brigade in front and moved promptly upon the enemy, who seemed not to understand exactly what was expected of them, and as Colonel White took position on a hill in an open field about four hundred yards from a division of Federal cavalry the latter only looked, but made no hostile movement. After a while a column of about 400 Yankees moved from the division and formed on the hill near the remnant of the Laurel Brigade. This was too much for Colonel White, and he ordered a charge.”
“Mix with ’em, boys!” White shouted. “Unjoint ’em!”
The attack drove the Federals to their reserves, who fled in turn, and the blue wave broke. Thompson saw it: “Again, but for the last time, the avenging sabers of the Laurel Brigade flashed fiercely over the Yankee cavalry, many of them being killed or wounded, but no prisoners were taken.”
The chase went on for two miles before White dismounted his men and fought them as infantry.
Lieutenant Fletcher Massie, of Lamkin’s Battery, had ten men left, most of them unarmed. They marched in rear of General Field’s infantry and settled near the courthouse. Massie looked out at the front line of the army, talking to a lieutenant from a nearby battery:
“It looks mighty slender. Look, how many holes are in the ranks.”
Their attention was diverted by a captured Federal gun being wheeled through the town, a brass Napoleon from Company M, U.S. Regular Artillery; a caisson followed, each of the vehicles drawn by six horses. Federal gunners rode the lead horses, under guard of gray cavalrymen.
Massie saw General E. P. Alexander in the road.
“I’m sorry you don’t have your guns with you, Massie,” the Georgian said. “I’m putting the batteries in line now to meet the enemy.”
“I’ve got ten men here ready to serve a gun, and I saw a Yankee piece just come through, and I’d like to have that. My men can handle it.”
“Very well. Come along and I’ll turn it over to you.”
Massie sent the Federal crew to the provost marshal and prepared to wheel the gun into position.
Percy Hawes, the young courier, found himself near the guns of Colonel Alexander Stark’s battalion when the enemy attack came. Bluecoats overran them, but Stark remained on horseback, and his gunners fought until cut down by bayonets. Stark then called off survivors and left the guns to the Federals.
Just to the rear were eight guns of the old Poague Battalion, commanded by Major Thomas H. Brander. Hawes was sent back to ask Brander to drive off the enemy. A blast of fire cleared the spot. The courier wrote:
“The enemy had not gotten more than thirty feet away from the mouth of Stark’s guns when Stark ran up at the head of his cannoneers, took charge of the guns, and, turning them on the enemy, killed many of them almost at the mouths of the pieces.”
Robert Lee had watched since daylight from a position behind Gordon, peering through the fog with glasses. Venable returned with Gordon’s grim message.
Lee spoke after a moment, “Then there is nothing left for me to do but go and see General Grant, and I would rather die a thousand deaths.”
One of the officers said, “Oh, General, what will history say of the surrender of the army in the field?”
“Yes,” Lee said. “I know they will say hard things of us: They will not understand how we were overwhelmed by numbers. But that is not the question, Colonel: The question is, is it right to surrender this army? If it is right, then I will take all the responsibility.”
The staff noted that Lee was on the verge of losing his self-control. The commander all but moaned, “How easily I could be rid of this, and be at rest! I have only to ride along the line and all will be over. But it is our duty to live. What will become of the women and children of the South if we are not here to protect them?”
Longstreet and Mahone came up. Old Pete wrote of the commander at this moment: “He was dressed in a new uniform … and a pair of gold spurs. At first approach his compact figure appeared as a man in the flush vigor of forty summers, but as I drew near, the handsome apparel and brave bearing failed to conceal his profound depression.”
Lee asked Longstreet’s advice on surrender.
“Can the sacrifice of the army help the cause in other quarters?”
“I think not,” Lee said.
“Then,” Longstreet said, “your situation speaks for itself.”
The tiny Mahone shivered by a fire, his worn brown linen duster covering him completely, concealing even the point of his sword. Mahone was about forty, thin, frail-looking, with a sallow sharp face.
“I don’t want you to think I’m scared,” Mahone said. “I’m only chilled.”
Lee asked his advice, and Mahone chattered away for several minutes. Longstreet did not listen carefully, but he heard that Mahone, too, thought the commander should ask Grant for terms.
Lee asked Longstreet once more, point-blank, if he should surrender. Old Pete merely nodded his head.
Lee delayed, standing by the fire, and when E. P. Alexander approached, led him to a seat on a fallen log. The gifted artilleryman had irregular features, a scraggly beard and “a decidedly ugly mouth,” but there was an unmistakable air about him, a hint of the talents the army had so often used. Lee bent over a map with him.
“Well, here we are at Appomattox, and there seems to be a considerable force in front of us. Now what shall we have to do today?”
“If you see a chance to cut our way out, I’ll answer for the artillery. We’ll fight as well as ever. The boys were yelling to me on the road just now not to surrender any ammunition, whatever else we gave up.”
“The trouble is lack of infantry,” Lee said. “There are just two divisions left that haven’t been worn to pieces, and they’re so small.”
“Well, sir, we have two alternatives. We must surrender or scatter in the woods and bushes and rally to General Johnston in North Carolina, or each man report to the governor of his own state. Scattering would be best.”
“Well, what would you hope to gain by that?”
“If there’s any hope for us, it’s in delay. If you surrender, every other army will give up as soon as the news reaches it. The only thing left for us to fight for is to get some kind of terms, so we won’t be at their mercy. A little blood more or less now makes no difference. Your men have the right to ask you not to make an unconditional surrender.”
“If I took your suggestion, how many men do you suppose would get away?”
“Two thirds of us. We’d scatter like rabbits and partridges in the woods, and they couldn’t scatter to catch us.”
“The men would have no rations, be under no discipline. They’re already demoralized. They’d have to rob and plunder. You young men might afford to go bushwhacking, but the only proper course for me would be to surrender and take the consequences.”
Alexander talked with him for several minutes, but though Lee said he expected honorable terms, without unconditional surrender, he ordered the artilleryman to the front to aid Gordon. Alexander rode off to place the remaining batteries.
Colonel Walter Taylor came to Lee, reporting that he had done his best to bring up the wagon trains during the night, as he had been ordered.
“Well, Colonel, what are we to do?” Lee asked.
“I’m afraid we’ll have to abandon the wagons, sir, and then the army might escape.”
“Yes,” Lee said. “Perhaps we could. But I have had a conference with these gentlemen, and they agree the time has come to surrender.”
“Well, I can only speak for myself. To me any other fate is preferable.”
“That’s my own thinking,” Lee said.
“Of course, General, it’s different with you. You have to think of these brave men, and decide not only for yourself, but for them.”
“Yes,” Lee said. “It would be useless and cruel to provoke more bloodshed, and I’ve arranged to meet General Grant with the view to surrender, and want you to accompany me.”
Lee rode into the old stage road with a small party, in search of Grant: Taylor and Charles Marshall, riding behind Sergeant G. W. Tucker, General Hill’s old courier. Tucker carried on a stick a flag of truce—a dirty handkerchief. Marshall noted that the troops “cheered General Lee to the echo, as they had cheered him many a time before.” Lee waved his hand to halt the cheering, fearing that the men would attract fire from the enemy.
When they had passed the picket line, Tucker and Marshall rode ahead of them until he reached a bluecoat picket. A Federal rider emerged:
“Lieutenant Colonel Charles Whittier, General Humphreys’ staff,” the enemy officer said.
Whittier shook his head, obviously puzzled, when Marshall asked about a meeting between Grant and Lee, and then surprised the colonel by holding out a letter. “A dispatch from General Grant to General Lee. I’ll wait, in case General Lee has a reply.”
Marshall took the letter back to Lee, opened it and read:
General R. E. Lee,
Commanding C.S. Armies:
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. today could lead to no good. I will state, however, General, that I am equally desirous 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 U.S. Army
Lee at last spoke to Marshall. “Write a letter to General Grant and ask him to meet me to deal with the question of surrender of my army, in reply to the letter he wrote me at Farmville.
Marshall sat and wrote as Lee dictated:
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 proposition of yesterday with reference to the surrender of this army.
They were interrupted by a flying horseman, Colonel Jack Haskell, a reckless one-armed rider who had come from Long-street. Haskell reined sharply.
“What is it?” Lee said. “What is it? Oh, why did you do it? You have killed your beautiful horse.”
“Fitz Lee has found a way out,” Haskell said. “The army can get away if we hurry.”
Lee questioned Haskell briefly and turned back to his letter as if he gave no further thought to the situation at the front. He continued dictating:
I now request an interview in accordance with the offer contained in your letter of yesterday for that purpose.
Very respectfully,
Your obt.servt.
R. E. Lee
Marshall passed the dispatch to Lee for signing and took it to the waiting Whittier at the Federal lines. Whittier returned to the spot within five minutes:
“I’ve been directed to say that an attack has been ordered here, and that the commander on the front has no discretion. General Grant left General Meade some time ago, and the letter cannot reach him in time to stop the attack.”
“Ask Meade to read General Lee’s letter,” Marshall said. “Perhaps under the circumstances he can stop it.”
Whittier was gone for a long time. Federal pickets were advancing, and a soldier with a flag of truce entered Confederate lines to warn that the men must fall back or take the consequences. Lee sat in his place as if he had decided to hold that post at all costs.
After a wait of almost an hour Lee sent off to Grant a second note:
I ask a suspension of hostilities pending the adjustment of the terms of the surrender of this army, in the interview requested in my former communication today.
Only when advancing bluecoats were within a hundred yards of him did Lee ride toward Longstreet’s lines. On the way he had a scond message from Fitz Lee, reporting that the information carried by Jack Haskell was false; the way to freedom was firmly closed. Lee accepted this without a trace of surprise. He sent a courier to Gordon, telling him that hostilities were suspended, pending further word from Grant.
Lee soon had a note from General Meade, assuring him that a brief truce would be honored—but that an hour must be the limit. The Federal proposed that Lee send still another message to Grant in an effort to hurry communication. Lee halted in an apple orchard and dictated a fresh dispatch, ending:
I therefore request an interview at such time and place as you may designate, to discuss the terms of the surrender of this army in accord with your offer to have such an interview contained in your letter of yesterday.
E. P. Alexander was again with the commander; he took blankets from his saddle, spread them across fence rails beneath an apple tree, and persuaded Lee to lie down. Soldiers began to crowd about, and Colonel T. M. R. Talcott of the engineers, who had come up, strung a cordon of men around the tree.
Longstreet joined Lee, and the commander talked in slow, brief sentences of the note from Grant, which concerned him because it made no specific proposal. He feared that Grant might demand “harsh terms.”
“I know Grant well enough to say that the terms will be about what you would demand under the circumstances,” Long-street said.
Lee watched glumly as a Federal officer rode up under a white flag. Longstreet tried to cheer the commander. “If he won’t give you honorable terms, break it off, and tell him to do his worst.”
Lee straightened, and Longstreet concluded that the “thought of another round seemed to brace him.”
The Federal rider introduced himself as Colonel Orville Babcock of Grant’s staff. He brought a letter from Grant:
General R. E. Lee,
Commanding C.S. Army:
Your note of this date is but this moment (11:50 A.M.) received. In consequence of my having passed from the Richmond and Lynchburg road to the Farmville and Lynchburg road. I am writing this about four miles west of Walker’s church and will push forward to the front for the purpose of meeting you. Notice sent on this road where you wish the interview to take place will meet me.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
U. S. Grant
Lieutenant-General.
Lee prepared to meet Grant. He handed Venable the worn map of photographic linen he had used for months. “Burn it, Colonel,” he said. Before this could be done E. P. Alexander cut off a strip for a souvenir. It read: “South Side James River, R. E. Lee.”
Lee asked Taylor and Marshall to ride with him. Taylor shook his head. “I have ridden twice through the lines this morning, General,” he said. Lee excused him, and Taylor was grateful. The bridegroom wrote: “I shrank from this interview.”
Marshall was in “a dilapidated state.” He borrowed a fresh shirt and collar, and exchanged his plain sword for a more presentable one.
The group went up the hill toward Appomattox Court House. Sergeant Tucker led, but had to pause at the stream, where Traveller drank. They were well up the hillside before infantry caught sight of them. Cheers broke out, but faded as the troops saw the white flag. Silence fell.
There was another wait for the party on the outskirts of the village, when Lee sent Marshall ahead to find a place for the meeting. Marshall stopped a man, a Major Wilmer McLean, who had evacuated his family to this quiet spot from the field of Manassas, where war had twice overrun his farm.
McLean showed Marshall a vacant brick building, a disheveled house empty of furniture. Marshall shook his head. “Isn’t there another place?”
McLean led him toward his house, a thin-shanked brick two-story dwelling at the roadside near the courthouse, its lawn shaded by young locusts. Marshall approved, and Lee soon arrived. He led the way into the house. They passed to a room at the left. Marshall wrote: “So General Lee, Babcock and myself sat down in McLean’s parlour and talked in the most friendly and affable way.”
Lee sat by a small table, where he could look through a south window across the valley of the Appomattox. He placed hat and gauntlets on the table, and sat with crossed legs. He wore new boots embroidered in red silk. His handsome sword glittered. Its handle was white, crowned with the head of a lion, its guard and wire wrapping of gilt. The scabbard was blue steel, trimmed in gilt. One side of the blade was engraved: “General Robert E. Lee, from a Marylander, 1863.” On the reverse side was written: “Aide toi et Dieu t’aidera.”
At the front John Gordon’s troops were still fighting, “furiously fighting in nearly every direction,” the general said, when a courier handed him Lee’s note about the flag of truce. Gordon summoned Colonel Green Peyton of his staff.
“Get a flag of truce and take a message to General Ord for me. I want you to say this to him: ‘General Gordon has received notice from General Lee of a flag of truce, stopping the battle.’ Tell him that and nothing more.”
Peyton nodded. “But we have no flag of truce, General,” he said.
“Well, take your handkerchief, and tie that on a stick.”
“General, I have no handkerchief.”
“Then tear your shirt, sir, and tie that to a stick.”
Peyton said, “I have on a flannel shirt, and I see you have. I don’t believe there’s a white shirt in the army.”
“Get something, sir. Get something and go.”
Peyton at last rode out with a dingy rag. He could not find Ord, but did find Sheridan and returned with a colorful visitor. Gordon wrote:
“He returned to me accompanied by an officer of strikingly picturesque appearance. This Union officer was slender and graceful, and a superb rider. He wore his hair very long, falling almost to his shoulders.… He saluted me with his saber and said, ‘I am General Custer, and bear a message to you from General Sheridan. The General desires me to present to you his compliments, and to demand the immediate and unconditional surrender of all the troops under your command.’”
“You will please, General, return my compliments to General Sheridan, and say to him that I shall not surrender my command.”
“He directs me to say to you, General, that if there is any hesitation about your surrender, that he has you surrounded, and can annihilate your command in an hour.”
“I’m probably as well aware of my situation as General Sheridan. I have nothing to add to my message from General Lee. If General Sheridan decides to continue fighting in the face of a flag of truce the responsibility for the blood shed will be his, and not mine.”
Custer rode away.
Hundreds of men in the village took note of Custer. Lieutenant J. F. J. Caldwell was leading some of his South Carolina infantry when the Federal cavalryman galloped by: “The men saw the stars on his shoulder straps and congratulated themselves that there had been another of the enemy’s generals captured. We had left General Gregg behind us … this one, with him, would make a fine pair of birds to have in our net, they thought.”
Other men noticed that Custer “bore himself in the manner of a conqueror,” and also waved a white flag. Caldwell said, “Why should there be truce in such a time as this? Then the sickening thought of surrender first entered my mind.”
One of the men moved Caldwell deeply, a veteran who came up and put his arms around the neck of the lieutenant’s horse. He was crying. “Is it true? Is it true General Lee has surrendered?”
“I fear there’s no reason to doubt it.”
“My God, that I should have lived to see this day! Caldwell, I didn’t think I’d live to see this day. I hoped I should die before this day.”
I. G. Bradwell, the Georgia private in Gordon’s ranks, saw a Federal rider come in from the left, waving a red bandanna, shouting:
“Who’s in command here?”
“Gordon!”
The Federal was now in easy range, and Private John Thursby of the 31st Georgia raised his musket, “I’ll get that scoundrel!”
A companion knocked the barrel aside, “Don’t, John. It may be already surrender, and might cause trouble.”
“That’s not a white flag, and I’m not bound to respect it.”
The men about Thursby held him until the officer passed from sight.
Thomas Devereux and his companion, Tuck Badger, had feasted in the morning: “In the road where the wagon train had passed we picked up some corn which had been spilled, about a bushel, I suppose. Tuck and I fed our horses, built a fresh fire, divided our corn with the rest of the staff, and parched a belly full.”
After sunrise, when he had taken a short nap, Devereux was roused and sent forward with his troops; they had charged about a mile in the direction of Lynchburg, driving Yankees within sight of the Appomattox railroad station, when two officers, one of them a bluecoat, rode down the lines with white flags. Someone said the Federal was Custer. Devereux and his men recrossed the Appomattox:
“Without orders the men began to throw up extemporized breastworks of logs, fence rails and so forth. In a very few minutes General Grimes rode up and told us to stop working, that there would be no more fighting.”
“The Army has surrendered,” Grimes said.
Devereux would never forget the moment: “Some burst into tears, some threw down their guns, others broke them against trees, and I saw one man thrust his musket between a forked sapling, bend the barrel and say, ‘No Yankee will ever shoot at us with you.’ A crowd surrounded General Grimes, who in a few words explained the situation, and said we would receive rations during the day. Then we went into camp, and the war was over.”
A. C. Jones, in Gordon’s ranks, thought there was “something ominous” in the air as he watched General Lee ride toward the village.
“He looked about as usual except that he wore a bright, new uniform. A few minutes afterwards I was standing in the road directing the moving of a rail fence to be used in building works when, to my astonishment, a squad of Yankee cavalry appeared, led by an officer carrying a white flag. In passing I distinctly heard him say, ‘Those men had as well quit work.’”
There was soon an order to stop. Jones was half expecting word of surrender, but even so it “was a mental shock that I am unable to describe, just as if the world had suddenly come to an end. Lying flat upon the ground with my face to the earth, I went almost into a state of unconsciousness. Aroused from this condition by the excited voices of the men, I found that a number of them, led by Dick McDonald, a boy of eighteen, were insisting upon destroying the guns, swearing that the Yankees should not have them. With some difficulty I prevented this, and soon we all calmed down to a realization of the situation.”
Almost instantly, Jones noticed, the generals of the army disappeared, and only regimental officers were left to handle the men.
Captain Fred Colston and Lieutenant Joseph Packard walked from their camp to the courthouse and on the way were passed by Robert Lee and his small party.
Since Colston had never seen him with a sword except at a review, he halted. “Packard, that means surrender.”
Colston then saw Custer in the street: “Recognized … by his long, yellow hair, and the red neckerchief of his command.”
Custer talked with General Longstreet as Colston listened, and the two had an angry exchange.
Captain Sommers, a Confederate quartermaster who had been captured, paroled and recaptured during cavalry attacks on the wagons in retreat, confronted Custer:
“General Custer, I’d like to ask just what my status is. You see, I got captured, and then—”
Custer snapped, “Oh, I’ve no time to attend to that now.”
William Owen, the artilleryman, met Robert Lee and Colonels Marshall and Taylor as the commander made his first ride to the outer lines. Owen saluted and Lee halted:
“Good morning, Colonel. How are your horses this morning? Do you think you can keep up with the infantry today?”
“I think I can. They had a pretty good feed of shucks. But, General, I have no orders.”
Lee pointed to a hill. “You will find General Longstreet there. He will give you orders.” He touched his hat and rode off. Owen wrote:
“I noted particularly his dress. He was in full uniform, with a handsome embroidered belt and dress sword, tall hat, and buff gauntlets. His horse, ‘Old Traveller’, was finely groomed, and his equipment, bridle, bit and so forth, were polished until they shone. All this seemed peculiar. I had never seen him before in full rig, and began to think something strange was to happen. He always wore during the campaigns a gray sack coat with side pockets, quite like the costume of a business man in cities.”
Owen took his men and guns toward the sound of firing, and met Generals Alexander and Longstreet, who were seated on a log. Alexander rose and greeted Owen.
“General Lee sent me here for orders,” Owen said. “What do you want me to do?”
“Turn into the field on your right and park the guns,” Alexander said. He then lowered his voice. “We are going to surrender today.”
Owen wrote: “We had been thinking it might come to that, sooner or later; but when the shock came it was terrible. And was this to be the end of all our marching and fighting for the past four years? I could not keep back the tears that came to my eyes.”
Alexander warned him to keep the news from his men, and Owen took the guns into the field. He saw a flag of truce. The gunner was one of many who saw Custer as he tried for a second time to entice a Confederate commander to surrender, this time Longstreet. He sketched Custer’s approach:
“He wore his hair very long, and it was of a light or reddish color. In his hand he carried a white handkerchief, which he constantly waved up and down. He inquired for General Lee, and was directed to General Longstreet upon the hill. Upon approaching he dismounted and said, ‘General Longstreet, in the name of General Sheridan and myself I demand the surrender of this army. I am General Custer.’”
“I’m not in command,” Longstreet said. “General Lee is, and he’s gone back to meet General Grant in regard to our surrender.”
“Well,” Custer said, “no matter about Grant. We demand the surrender be made to us. If you do not do so we will renew hostilities, and any blood shed will be upon your head.”
“Oh, well,” Longstreet said. “If you do that I’ll do my best to meet you.” Old Pete turned to his staff.
Colonel Manning,” he said, “please order General Johnson to move his division to the front, to the right of General Gordon. Colonel Latrobe, please order General Pickett forward, to General Gordon’s left. Do it at once!”
There was surprise on Custer’s face as these orders were passed. Owen said:
“He, cooling off immediately, said, ‘General, probably we had better wait until we hear from Grant and Lee. I will speak to General Sheridan about it; don’t move your troops yet.’ And he mounted and withdrew in a much more quiet style than in his approach.”
When Custer had gone, Longstreet chuckled. “Ha! That young man has never learned to play the game of ‘Brag.’”
Owen joined the laughter; he knew that the divisions of Johnson and Pickett had disappeared after Sayler’s Creek.
W. C. Powell marched with Company I of the 1st Engineers, carrying a Mississippi rifle in awkward, unaccustomed fashion, and was in Gordon’s front when Custer rode into the Confederate lines:
“We thought they were prisoners and gave them a hearty cheer.”
Custer passed, and yells came from the woods ahead, where the enemy lay. Colonel Talcott yelled to the Engineers, “Ready! They’re coming.”
A solitary horseman came from the woods. Powell and his companions thought he was a captured Confederate making his escape, and cheered for him. But when he came within hailing distance the rider shouted, “Lay down your arms, you damned Rebels! Surrender!”
“He’s a Yankee,” someone said. “Shoot him.”
Without an officer’s command, thirty-five or forty rifles fired. Powell wrote: “The man and the horse went down, the man rolling like a ball over the head of the horse with enough momentum to bring him up to and through our line, and when he straightened out he was dead.”
Soon afterward a Federal walked from the woods with a white flag. Colonel Talcott sent a Sergeant Delacy, of Company I, to interview the bluecoat. Delacy returned. “He says Lee’s surrendered.”
W. L. Moffett, a private of Company D, 14th Virginia Cavalry, helped capture one of the enemy cannon, a final prize of the Army of Northern Virginia. He rode down a hill after Poague’s big guns had cleared the field and was one of the riders who herded back part of a Philadelphia battery. He recalled it:
“I was ordered to guard them fellows, and when I got rid of them, the regiment had gone somewhere, I did not know where. But I did know I was left with some Yankees, and could only see the dust … to my right and to the Yankees’ left.
“General W. H. F. Lee came along my way as I stood with the prisoners, and I asked him where the command was. He answered: ‘It has gone. You turn them fellows aloose and come with me.’ And I came. As I looked over my shoulder, as I rode down the hill we had charged up, I saw a regiment of Yanks riding by with their carbines slung, and carrying a white flag in the middle of the regiment and gradually expanding around our camp.”
The Federal battery Moffett had helped to capture passed him, going back toward the enemy lines. One bluecoat shouted, “Guess you didn’t keep us very long, did you, Johnny?”
E. M. Boykin rode into the open on the east side of the village with General Gary and the 7th South Carolina Cavalry, by now wide awake. In the distance a number of Federals clustered about a big white house; a bluecoat officer was studying Appomattox Court House with field glasses.
“Let’s charge ’em,” Gary said.
“It looks like a flag of truce party, General,” someone said.
Gary swore explosively and urged them on; the riders drove the few Federals from the house and into woods. Boykin took a prisoner, a good-humored little man with his head bound heavily in bandages who behaved as if he knew his capture would be brief indeed. Boykin wrote:
“We were having it, as we thought, all our own way—when, stretched along behind the brown oaks, and moving with a close and steady tramp, was a long line of cavalry, some thousands strong—Custer’s division, our friends of last night. This altered the complexion of things entirely.”
Gary ordered a retreat by the flank, and Custer’s line came after the South Carolinians, slowly, firing no volleys, but dropping shots from a skirmisher here and there, herding the Confederates. Boykin later surmised that the Federals knew of the truce, and were aware that Gary’s men did not. The shots ceased when a courier, Tribble of the 7th South Carolina, rode past with a white flag, yelling news of the surrender.
A Federal captain rode to General Gary and shouted, “What do you mean by keeping up the fight after surrender?”
Gary bellowed, “Surrender! I’ve heard of no surrender. We’re South Carolinians, sir, and we don’t surrender. Besides, sir, I take commands from no officers but my own, and I don’t recognize you or any of your cloth as such.”
Boykin expected a duel, but other Federal officers intervened, and one assured Gary that a flag of truce was out, and that Grant and Lee were to confer. Only then did Gary sheathe his sword and lower his voice:
“Don’t suppose, sir, that I have any doubt of the truth of your statement. But you know I can take orders only from my own officers. I’m perfectly willing to accept your statement and wait for those orders.”
Captain W. W. Blackford of the Engineers came to Gary with orders to cease fighting, and the fragments of the cavalry were gathered in a field to wait.
Boykin kept an eye on Gary; the general turned his horse away, and with a captain and two others rode from the village.
Blackford’s memory of the scene was more vivid. He was sent to Gary’s field with a Federal officer who had come under a flag of truce, Lieutenant Vanderbilt Allen of Sheridan’s staff. Allen rode ahead of Blackford, and gave Gary the first news of surrender. The General was apoplectic:
“And you expect me to believe any such damned tale as that? Where is the officer who brought you here? No sir, you shall go to the rear with the rest of the prisoners.”
“I’m the officer, General,” Blackford said. Gary rode aside with Blackford.
“What does this mean?”
“It means the army is surrendered, sir.” Blackford had a long memory of Gary’s reaction:
“He quivered as if he had been shot, and sat still in his saddle a moment, and then, returning his saber, which he held still drawn in his hand, he said, ‘Then I’ll be damned if I surrender.’ And that night he passed out of the lines to join Johnston’s army, I heard.”
John Gordon had more guests at the western front of the army. He remembered:
“In a short time a white flag was seen approaching. Under it was Philip Sheridan, accompanied by a mounted escort almost as large as one of Fitz Lee’s regiments. Sheridan was mounted on an enormous horse, a very handsome animal. He rode in front of the escort, and an orderly carrying the flag rode beside him.”
Gordon’s sharpshooters were still close about him. As Sheridan’s riders came within range, Gordon said, “a half-witted fellow” raised his rifle.
“No,” the general said. “You can’t fire on a truce flag.”
The man lowered the barrel sullenly, keeping it in position, and was raising it once more when Gordon seized the barrel.
“Well, General,” the marksman said, “let him stay on his own side.”
Gordon went to meet Sheridan. The Federal said that Grant had not notified him of suspension of hostilities, but when he read Gordon’s note from Lee, he sent officers to halt firing. He was sitting on the ground with Gordon when a burst of firing rolled from the left. Gordon wrote:
“General Sheridan sprang to his feet and fiercely asked: ‘What does that mean, sir?’ I replied: ‘It’s my fault, General, I had forgotten that brigade. But let me stop the firing first, and then I’ll explain.’”
Men went to stop the shots on the flank—Captain Blackford and Lieutenant Allen.
Gordon sized up Sheridan:
“His style of conversation and general bearing, while never discourteous, were far less agreeable and pleasing than those of any other officer of the Union army whom it was my fortune to meet … there was an absence of that delicacy and consideration which was exhibited by other Union officers.”
Sheridan’s insults were thinly veiled, Gordon thought. The Federal opened by saying “with a slight tinge of exultation,” “We have met before, I believe, at Winchester and Cedar Creek, in the Valley.” Gordon acknowledged his role in the Confederate defeats. Sheridan added:
“I had the pleasure of receiving some artillery consigned to me through your commander, General Early.”
“Yes,” Gordon said. “And this morning I received from your government artillery consigned to me through General Sheridan.”
The little cavalryman was incredulous. He could not believe that some of his guns had been taken during the day.
The generals parted, Gordon noted, “without the slightest breach of military courtesy.”
PURSUIT
The hours after midnight near the settlement of Curdsville were quiet. Sleepy sentries lounged at the two houses occupied by Meade and Grant. At 4 A.M. a figure emerged from the Clifton house and stumbled into the yard. It was Grant.
Upstairs, General Horace Porter stirred:
“I rose and crossed the hall to ascertain how the General was feeling. I found the room empty, and upon going out the front door found him pacing up and down in the yard holding both hands to his head.”
“How do you feel, General?”
“The pain is terrible. I had very little sleep.”
“Well, there’s one consolation in all this,” Porter said. “I never knew you to be ill that you did not get some good news. I’ve become a little superstitious.”
Grant smiled wanly. “The best thing that can happen to me today is to get rid of this pain.”
Other men of the staff were now up, and persuaded Grant to go to Meade’s headquarters for coffee. Porter thought the commander already felt better. Grant paused when he had reached Meade’s house and wrote his first dispatch of the day to Robert Lee; it went out while the staff was at breakfast.
When full daylight came Grant was anxious to be off. Porter urged him to ride in an ambulance, so that he would be protected from the hot sun later in the day. Grant refused. He mounted Cincinnati and led his staff on a wide detour of the Rebel army, seeking Sheridan’s front. They left Meade behind.
Porter and the newspaperman, Cadwallader, found it a hard ride across country and along little-used trails. Their route was to the village of New Store, thence south, across the Appomattox, into a wagon road leading from Farmville to Appomattox Court House. They were eight or nine miles east of the courthouse village when a rider overtook them. It was about 11 A.M.
The party had stopped in a newly cleared field to rest the horses, and several officers had lighted cigars from one of the burning piles of logs and brush. Someone looked rearward. Cadwallader wrote:
“A horseman was coming at full speed, waving his hat above his head, and shouting at every jump of his steed. As he neared us we recognized him as Major Pease, of General Meade’s staff, mounted on a coal black stallion, white with foam from his long and rapid pursuit of us.”
The rider was Lieutenant Charles E. Pease; he had brought a dispatch from Robert Lee, sent forward by Meade.
Pease saluted Aaron Rawlins and handed him the envelope, which the officer opened with agonizing deliberation. Rawlings passed the letter to Grant with no comment.
Cadwallader studied Grant’s face: “There was no exultation manifested—no sign of joy—and instead of flushing from excitement, he clenched his teeth, compressed his lips, and became very pale.”
Grant read the letter with care and gave it back to Rawlins. “You had better read it aloud, General,” he said. Cadwallader thought Grant’s face no more expressive than “last year’s bird’s nest.”
Rawlins breathed deeply. His voice was deep, but tremulous, as he read the note from Lee, beginning:
General:—I received your note of this morning on the picket line …
He came quickly to the final words:
I now ask an interview, in accordance with the offer contained in your letter of yesterday, for that purpose.
There was a long moment of silence. Cadwallader was aware that the moment was historic:
“No one looked his comrade in the face. Finally Colonel Duff, chief of Artillery, sprang upon a log, waved his hat, and proposed three cheers. A feeble hurrah came from a few throats, when all broke down in tears, and but little was said for several minutes.”
Grant spoke of the dispatch at last: “How will that do, Rawlins?”
“I think that will do,” Rawlins said.
Grant summoned his military secretary, Colonel Ely Parker, a huge brown-skinned man known to the army simply as “The Indian.” The commander dictated his reply to Robert Lee, noting the time as 11:50 A.M. Parker scratched industriously; he was the best penman in Grant’s headquarters entourage.
Parker was the most striking of the men around Grant, a quiet, round-faced giant who was the last Grand Sachem of the Iroquois; he had already carved a notable career. In his youth he had known Webster, Clay and Calhoun, and been befriended by the widow of President Polk. A law graduate, he had belatedly discovered that, since he was not an American citizen, he was barred from practice; he then graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as a civil engineer, worked on the Erie Canal, and was chief engineer for the Chesapeake and Albemarle Canal.
Parker had become Grant’s friend before the war, when he helped build the Marine Hospital in Galena, Illinois; ex-Captain Grant was a clerk in a harness shop, and had been rescued from trouble in a drunken episode by Parker.
The War Department rejected Parker as an engineer early in the war, but he somehow appeared at Vicksburg as a captain, impressed Grant with his work and joined the staff. Everyone seemed to know him. Horace Porter liked to tell of a man who came to headquarters to see Grant:
“Where’s the old man?”
Aaron Rawlins, who was busy, jerked a thumb toward Grant’s tent. The visitor got a glimpse of Parker.
“That’s him, all right, but he’s got all-fired sunburnt since I saw him last.”
Grant had joshed Parker about the incident for months. The Indian had been the commander’s private secretary, with rank of Lieutenant Colonel, since August, 1864.
This morning Parker quickly finished his work, and at noon the message went off to Lee under a white flag, accompanied by Lieutenant Colonel Orville Babcock and a lieutenant.
Pease had also brought Grant a note from Meade, explaining that he had opened the dispatch, and as a result had arranged a brief truce. Grant’s officers noted the effect of this as they resumed their ride. Heavy firing of the morning faded, and they rode for some miles in silence. They trotted.
Horace Porter was still concerned about Grant. Over and over he had asked, “How do you feel, General?”
Now Grant grinned. “The pain in my head seemed to leave me the minute I got Lee’s letter.”
They came into a road near the village which was filled with men, horses and wagons, and turned across fields. A rider overtook them—Colonel Newhall of Sheridan’s staff, who had one of the duplicate dispatches from Lee, sent off to insure delivery. There was a brief halt to read this, and Grant led them on. They drew near lines of troops, and when they saw these men were Confederates, the headquarters party turned back. Porter wrote:
“A short ride further would take us into his lines. It looked for a moment as if a very awkward condition of things might arise, and Grant become a prisoner in Lee’s lines, instead of Lee in his. Such a circumstance would have given rise to an important cross entry in the system of campaign bookkeeping.”
Cadwallader saw both armies as he trotted into the open valley about Appomattox Court House: “Officers were galloping in all directions, colors were flying, and it had more the appearance of a grand review of troops, than of two contending hosts.”
At closer range, however, he saw “dirty, tattered, ranks of soldiers, none of them well clad, and nearly all officers in fatigue dress.”
They crossed the upper end of the main street of the village and moved toward the courthouse. The landscape was sketched by the observant Morris Schaff:
Lee’s campfires were along the Lynchburg road, which runs southwest to Appomattox. Along here lone and bushy ravine-scored fields tilt for a mile, at least, to a timbered ridge circling southwestward around the birthplace of the river.…
This ridge, where it is crossed by the old road, is flattish, crowned with woods, and about half a mile wide, breaking down sharply on its northern side into the bed of Rocky Run, a pleasant brook that goes gurgling around the ridge’s base and falls into the Appomattox about a mile below the courthouse.
Beyond the run the ground begins to rise at once in a long commanding incline to the top of a higher ridge.… On each side are beautiful leaning and dipping fields.… At the top of the second ridge the road enters woods and then sweeps directly to the east by New Hope Church on toward New Store and Farmville. The prevailing timber through which it bears is oak … roamed by wild turkeys.
The Appomattox, whose murmur can almost be heard at the courthouse, is nothing more than a good-sized willow-fringed run that a country boy can jump. The rivers’ [Appomattox and James] birthplace is at the feet of shouldering knobs, covered with monarch oak, and from any one of them you can overlook the old courthouse village, and all the scene of the last struggle.
Grant’s party met Sheridan and Ord and their staffs at the edge of the village.
“How are you, Sheridan?” Grant said.
“First-rate, thank you. How are you?”
Horace Porter detected exultation in the cavalryman’s voice.
Grant’s memory of the moment was different:
“I was conducted at once to where Sheridan was … with his troops.… They were very much excited, and expressed their view that this was all a ruse employed to enable the Confederates to get away. They said they believed that Johnston was marching up from North Carolina now, and Lee was moving to join him; and they would whip the rebels where they were now in five minutes if I would only let them go in. But I had not a doubt about the good faith of Lee.”
Grant turned to Sheridan. “Is Lee over there?”
“Yes. He’s in that brick house.”
“Well, then, we’ll go over.”
George Meade was better this morning, but stuck to his ambulance. Soon after Grant left Curdsville, the commander of the Army of the Potomac was carried into the covered vehicle. Colonel Lyman heard a Federal band playing “Dixie” to mock the almost-surrounded Confederates, and thought the enemy must be seized by despair at the sound. At 6:30 A.M. Meade’s wagon got away “at a round trot.”
Lyman complained, “Ninety miles have I trotted and galloped after that Lee, and worn holes in pantaloons, before I could get him to surrender!”
After an hour the ambulance and staff met 6th Corps infantry streaming into the main road and Meade’s party halted to talk with General Horatio Wright.
At ten thirty, two Negroes came with news: Federals had entered Lynchburg yesterday, far to the west, and Lee was now cut off at Appomattox Court House. Lyman wrote:
“This gave us new wings!”
An aide went off to hurry General Humphreys and the infantry, all wagons were ordered out of the road, and the 6th Corps regiments passed at a trot. Lyman sketched a lively scene:
“Away went the General again, full tilt, along the road crowded by infantry, every man of whom was footing it as if a lottery prize lay just ahead! A bugler trotted ahead, blowing to call the attention of the troops, while General Webb followed, crying, ‘Give way to the right! Give way to the right!’
“Thus we ingeniously worked our way, amid much pleasantry.
“‘Fish for sale!’ roared one doughboy.
“‘Yes,’ joined in a pithy comrade, ‘and a tarnation big one, too!’
“The comments on the General were endless.
“‘That’s Meade.’
“‘Yes, that’s him.’
“‘Is he sick?’
“‘I expect he is. He looks kinder wild.’
“‘Guess the old man hain’t had much sleep lately.’”
When the party came near the Rebel lines Lyman overheard some of the confusion of the truce. General Humphreys got a request to suspend an attack until Grant and Lee had met, but shouted, “They shan’t stop me! Receive the message, but push on the skirmishers!”
An officer came through the lines with a dispatch from Lee saying that General Ord had ceased firing on the far end of the line, and asking for extension of the arrangement to this sector. The flurry over this brought Meade to the rear of his wagon.
“Hey! What! I have no sort of authority to grant such suspension. Lee has already refused Grant’s terms. Advance your skirmishers, Humphreys, and bring up your troops. We will pitch into them at once!”
Lyman thought his voice “harsh and suspicious.” Before orders could be passed General James W. Forsyth came through the Rebel lines from Sheridan. He urged a suspension of fighting, and Meade reluctantly agreed.
“Well, I’ll wait till two o’clock, to let you get back to Sheridan. And then, if I get no communication from Lee, I’ll attack.”
Forsyth left with a satchel full of notes and orders, and Meade’s staff waited impatiently for almost two hours. More Negroes came in with reports: Rebel pickets had thrown away their guns and fallen back. One of them said, “The Rebs have done give up.”
Meade pulled out his watch. “Two o’clock,” he said. “No answer. Go forward.” The pickets met a Federal and a Confederate officer, who had an order from Grant to halt the troops. Lyman sketched the Rebel:
“Major Wingate, of General Lee’s staff, was a military-looking man, dressed in a handsome gray suit with gold lace, and a gold star upon the collar. He was courageous, but plainly mortified to the heart. ‘We had done better to have burnt our whole train three days ago,’ he said bitterly. And there he struck the pith of the thing.”
Meade and his officers settled down to wait.
The bluecoat cavalry between Appomattox Station and the courthouse was late in settling for the night. When General Crook came up, Sheridan sent him to anchor Devin’s line and block the road to the Rebels. Across the dark road, Custer’s men tried to clear the field of captured guns, men and horses, to reform broken squadrons, and find their wounded.
George Custer was out until almost dawn, and before he went to his campfire visited the makeshift hospital of his division for a look at the wounded troopers. One of his men wrote: “Had it been daylight he would have seen green saplings about which his men … fought, bent and split by canister, the trees and artillery carriages perforated by bullet holes; horses wallowed in the bloody mud.… Surgeons of wide experience in the cavalry said they had never treated so many extreme cases in so short a fight.”
In the front line lay the veterans of the 1st Maine Cavalry, commanded by Colonel Jonathan P. Cilley, of Crook’s Division.
It was 1 A.M. when they were led into position across the Bent Creek Road, no more than three quarters of a mile from the courthouse. Cilley posted the videttes himself and had hardly finished when there were sounds from below. The colonel listened intently: Confederate artillery, he decided, making camp. Cilley walked through his lines and crept near enough to hear shouts of Rebel drivers to their horses. He returned to his men and made his headquarters simply by sitting at the foot of a chestnut tree and sat, drowsing, idly listening to the noises of the enemy camp. Overhead, through an occasional break in the clouds, he saw stars.
Half a mile behind him, running across this road, but with its center on the Lynchburg Road, was the full division, Crook’s main line, where troopers had dug in behind piles of rails and logs.
The front on the Lynchburg Road was held by the 3rd Brigade of Crook’s Division, under Colonel Charles H. Smith. It had pushed forward after midnight, until Smith found himself on a slight ridge, where he had men pull rails from fences and block the road. He dismounted his men and placed a couple of guns. The horses were taken to the rear, to be out of sight in case of Rebel attack.
Long before dawn orderlies had roused Sheridan in his cottage at Appomattox Station. General Ord arrived. The head of his Army of The James was in, having marched all night. The lead division was Robert Foster’s, of Gibbon’s 24th Corps. Sheridan wrote of Ord’s arrival:
“As he ranked me, of course I could give him no orders, so after a hasty consultation as to where his troops should be placed we separated.”
Sheridan rode to a hill near his front lines and Ord directed Foster’s men into a woodland behind the cavalry. Behind them was another division of the corps, followed by the entire 5th Corps; Negro troops were among them. Sheridan made a move of the cavalry, as well, sending MacKenzie to Crook’s left flank.
The fog lying against hillsides did not prevent Sheridan’s accurate diagnosis of firing in his front—waves of Rebel infantry were pushing back his videttes, and on a flank a cavalry attack was breaking the line. He had so close a look at John Gordon’s infantry in the field that he sensed danger. Morrris Schaff wrote:
They were now advancing firmly with colors, and there were so many standards crimsoning each body of troops—to their glory Confederate color bearers stuck by Lee to the last—that they looked like marching gardens blooming with cockscombs, red roses and poppies. One glance told Sheridan that Crook and MacKenzie could not possibly hold their ground.
Sheridan ordered the two officers to pull back their lines before the Rebels, and sent another aide to wake Custer and Devin, who were asleep in a field near the headquarters cottage.
Colonel Cilley’s men were pushed back hurriedly, and Confederates poured toward the main line of cavalry. On Colonel Smith’s front, action was slower, for the Rebels halted, uncertain whether they faced infantry or dismounted cavalry, and while they waited to bring up artillery, Ord’s infantry came up from the station, literally running into position.
On one flank MacKenzie’s little cavalry brigade was smashed by a Rebel charge, and, at the height of this, Confederate infantry broke Crook’s line. While the most determined troopers fought the graybacks, a fresh cavalry charge struck their flank, led by Rooney Lee. Schaff wrote of it: “Back through old fields and heavy copses of young pine and shaggy jack oaks Crook and Mackenzie were driven, their lead horses and batteries retreating in great confusion, leaving a gun—and perhaps two of them, for the number is in doubt—in the enemy’s hands.… Crook and MacKenzie out of their way, Grimes wheeled his line of battle … and the Lynchburg road was cleared.… The tattered forces that had cleared it burst into cheers.”
The Rebel yells were cut short, for through the broken ranks of fleeing cavalry came Foster’s division, with the 39th Illinois, and the 62nd and 69th Ohio in front. On one flank Negro troops fought their way into the open. Artillery fire halted these lines for a moment, but the 8th Maine and 199th Pennsylvania charged and silenced the guns. Fighting spread to other parts of the field.
General Joshua Chamberlain, of the Maine troops, got an order from an excited rider, “General Sheridan wants you to break from your column and come now. The Rebels are pressing him hard. Don’t wait for orders through regular channels. Act at once.”
Chamberlain took his men into a pine woods, running. Sheridan had a quick greeting: “Now smash ’em!” Once, after Chamberlain had the men charging over a field, he got an order to halt. He wrote:
“But in the impetuosity of youth and the heat of conflict I pushed on.… We fought like demons across that field and up that bristling hill. They told us we would expose ourselves to the full fire of the Confederate artillery once we gained the crest, but push on we did.”
A number of men fell, dropped by the last volley of Cox’s Rebel brigade. As the echoes died Chamberlain saw from his hill: “On the opposite ridge a full mile across the valley the dark blotches of the Confederate infantry drawn up in line of battle; the blocks of cavalry further to our right.…
“In the valley, where flowed the now narrow Appomattox … was a perfect swarm of moving men, animals, and wagons, wandering apparently aimlessly.”
Sheridan had one glimpse of this: “I decided to attack at once, and formations were ordered at a trot for a charge by Custer’s and Devin’s divisions down the slope.”
Custer was ready, but there was a delay with Devin’s men, and in the wait an aide brought Sheridan word: “Lee has surrendered. Don’t charge. The white flag is up.”
Sheridan sent word of this to Ord, but could not find Custer, and supposing that he had gone toward the courthouse, rode in that direction. He was in front of his staff when Confederate infantry fired at him. He halted, waved his hat, and yelled, “There’s a truce. Stop firing!”
Bullets sang about his head and Sheridan took cover behind a ridge. He rode into the village with a sergeant who carried a battle flag on a staff, and was forced to turn back and save the colors:
“I heard a Confederate soldier demanding my battle flag from the color bearer, thinking, no doubt, that we were coming in as prisoners. The sergeant had drawn his saber and was about to cut the man down, but at a word from me he desisted.”
Sheridan found General Gordon in command of the front, and was speaking to him when firing broke out.
Gordon seemed embarrassed by this. Sheridan said: “General, your men fired on me as I was coming over here, and undoubtedly they are treating Merritt and Custer the same way. We might as well let them fight it out.”
“There must be some mistake,” Gordon said.
“Why not send a staff officer and have your people cease firing? They are violating the flag.”
Lieutenant Vanderbilt Allen and a Confederate officer rode off to the flank.
Sheridan’s version of the last moments of this meeting:
“When quiet was restored Gordon remarked: ‘General Lee asks for a suspension of hostilities pending the negotiations which he is having with General Grant.’
“I rejoined: ‘I have been constantly informed of the progress of the negotiations, and think it singular that while such discussions are going on, General Lee should have continued his march and attempted to break through my lines this morning. I will entertain no terms except that General Lee shall surrender to General Grant on his arrival here. If these terms are not accepted we will renew hostilities.’
“Gordon replied: ‘General Lee’s army is exhausted. There is no doubt of his surrender to General Grant.’”
A Confederate rider with a scrap of a white towel on the tip of his saber came into the Federal lines, and met the 7th Michigan Cavalry of Devin’s Division.
“I’m Captain Sims from General Gordon,” he said. “Where’s your commanding officer, Sheridan? I have a message for him.”
“He’s not here, but Custer is. You’d better see him.”
“Can you take me to him?”
The captain went with Custer’s chief of staff, Colonel E. W. Whitaker, and found Custer riding with his squadrons toward the front.
“Who are you and what do you want?” Custer asked.
“I’m from Longstreet’s staff, with a message from Gordon to Sheridan to ask suspension of hostilities until General Lee can be heard from.”
“We’ll listen to no terms but unconditional surrender. We’re behind your army and it’s at our mercy.”
“Will you let me take this message back?”
“Yes, go on.”
“Do you want to send an officer with me?”
Custer hesitated, but sent Colonel Whitaker and Major George Briggs of the 7th Michigan with the Confederate. A moment later the waiting ranks saw Whitaker galloping along the front with two grayback officers, yelling to the Federal infantry.
In front of Joshua Chamberlain’s line Whitaker called, “This is unconditional surrender. This is the end.”
A Confederate also yelled, “I’m just from Gordon and Long-street, and Gordon says for God’s sake stop that infantry or hell will be to pay.”
“I’ve no authority to stop the movement,” Chamberlain said. “Sheridan’s in command.”
“Then I’ll go to him,” the Confederate said. Chamberlain stopped his men. About this time, Morris Schaff noted, the last shots were fired, from a Confederate battery. The last men killed, so far as he could tell, were a Lieutenant Clark of the 185th New York, and William Montgomery, of the 155th Pennsylvania, the latter fifteen years old, the victim of a Rebel Minié ball.
The Federals pushed forward until they were in the edge of the village, overlooking Confederate lines on every hand. Colors were planted and guns were parked. A quiet celebration spread in the ranks.
A gray-haired officer shouted, “Glory be to God, Chamberlain. Yes, and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men.”
WILMER McLEAN’S HOUSE
The McLean house sat back from the country road on the east side, behind a sagging fence and a carriage gate. Blue grass sprouted in the yard under the locusts. A wooden porch ran the length of the building, and near the north end, by the porch, a Confederate orderly grazed three horses.
Grant approached with a dozen or more officers, with others trailing tentatively behind. Sylvanus Cadwallader was along, as watchful as ever.
A staff officer put his horse over the fallen fence into the yard near the Rebel. “Whose horses are they?”
The graycoat orderly was Sergeant G. M. Tucker: “General Lee’s,” he said. “He’s in there.”
Cadwallader inspected the horses, one of them “a dapple gray” with a Grimsley saddle, a plain single-reined bridle, and none of the trappings of rank.
Grant turned into the yard. Except for the soiled shoulder straps of a lieutenant general—gold-bordered rectangles of black velvet each bearing one large and two small stars—he might have been a private of cavalry. His companions noted nothing remarkable in his manner, but he wrote as if strangely distracted in these moments:
“I had known General Lee in the old army, and had served with him in the Mexican War; but did not suppose, owing to the difference in our age and rank, that he would remember me; while I would more naturally remember him distinctly, because he was the chief of staff of General Scott in the Mexican War.”
Grant also had a thought of his appearance as he mounted the broad steps of the country house:
“When I had left camp that morning I had not expected so soon the result that was then taking place, and consequently was in rough garb. I was without a sword, as I usually was when on horseback on the field, and wore a soldier’s blouse for a coat, with the shoulder straps of my rank to indicate to the army who I was.”
Orville Babcock came from the house onto the porch as Grant climbed the steps. Horace Porter sketched the commander:
“Then nearly forty-three years of age, five feet eight inches in height, with shoulders slightly stooped. His hair and full beard were a nut-brown, without a trace of gray in them. He had on a single-breasted blouse, made of dark blue flannel, unbuttoned in front, and showing a waistcoat beneath. He wore an ordinary pair of top boots, with his trousers inside, and was without spurs. The boots and portions of his clothes were spattered with mud. He had on a pair of thread gloves, of a dark yellow color.”
Grant entered the house. Officers thronged on the porch and in the yard, draping themselves over two wooden benches flanking the doorway.
Charles Marshall wrote: “In about half an hour we heard horses, and the first thing I knew General Grant walked into the room.… He looked as though he had had a pretty hard time … dusty and a little soiled.”
A few officers had entered with Grant, but witnesses did not take careful note of them. The two commanders passed remarkable greetings. Horace Porter remembered it:
Grant: “I met you once before, General Lee, while we were serving in Mexico, when you came over from General Scott’s headquarters to visit Garland’s brigade. I have always remembered your appearance, and I think I should have recognized you anywhere.”
Lee: “Yes, I know I met you on that occasion, and I have often tried to recollect how you looked, but I have never been able to recall a single feature.”
There was a wandering conversation, marked by occasional pauses. Babcock went to the door and summoned other officers, Sheridan, Seth Williams, Rawlins, Horace Porter, Ely Parker and half a dozen others including Cadwallader. Babcock called for two more by name: Robert Lincoln, the President’s son, and Grant’s military secretary, Adam Badeau. The room on the left filled with men. Porter said:
“We walked in softly and ranged ourselves quietly about the sides of the room, very much as people enter a sick chamber when they expect to find the patient dangerously ill.”
Some Federals sat on the sofa but most of them stood. Grant sat near the center of the room, facing Lee, who was by the front window with Marshall, a tiny oval table at his side.
Porter noted that it was about 1:30 P.M.
Marshall’s memory of the conversation of the commanders was sparse:
“General Grant greeted General Lee very civilly, and they engaged for a short time in a conversation about their former acquaintance.… Some other Federal officers took part in the conversation, which was terminated by General Lee saying to General Grant that he had come to discuss the terms of the surrender of his army, as indicated in his note of that morning, and he suggested to General Grant to reduce his proposition to writing.”
Porter remembered more:
“I suppose, General Grant,” Lee said, “that the object of our meeting is fully understood. I asked to see you to ascertain upon what terms you would receive the surrender of my army.”
“The terms I propose,” Grant said, “are those stated substantially in my letter of yesterday—that is, the officers and men surrendered 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.”
“Those are about the conditions I expected,” Lee said.
“Yes, I think our correspondence indicated pretty clearly the action that would be taken,” Grant said. “I hope it will lead to a cessation of hostilities … preventing any further loss of life.”
“I presume we have both carefully considered the proper steps to be taken, and I suggest that you commit to writing the terms you have proposed, so that they may be formally acted upon.”
“Very well,” Grant said, “I will write them out.”
Ely Parker brought a little marble-topped table to Grant’s side, and the commander scratched for a few minutes with a pencil in his orderbook. Porter took special note of Grant’s hesitation at the end, when the general raised his head, glanced at Lee’s glittering dress sword, and wrote a sentence: “This will not embrace the side arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage.”
Babcock had gone to the door when Grant began writing. General George Forsyth, who was outside, saw him:
“Babcock came to the door again, opened it, and glanced out. As he did so he placed his forage cap on one finger, twirled it around, and nodded to us all, as much as to say, ‘It’s all settled.’”
Another onlooker was Henry Wing, an enterprising young New York reporter who had arranged such a signal. Inexplicably, he turned his horse from the yard and dashed through the lounging men in great haste.
Cadwallader was impressed by Grant’s poise, but thought Lee magnificent.
“He wore his hair and whiskers cut short, both of which were iron gray in color. He was rather stout and fleshy than otherwise; with bronzed face from exposure … but showing a remarkably fine white skin above the line of his hatband.… His manners and bearing were perfect, and stamped him a thoroughbred gentleman in the estimation of all who saw him … that happy blending of dignity and courtesy so difficult to describe … no haughtiness or ill-humor betrayed on the one hand; nor affected cheerfulness, forced politeness nor flippancy on the other. He was a gentleman—which fully and wholly expresses his behavior.”
Sheridan saw less when he glimpsed Lee: “When I entered McLean’s house General Lee was standing … dressed in a new uniform and wore a handsome sword. His tall, commanding form thus set off contrasted strongly with the short figure of General Grant.”
Grant wrote:
“What General Lee’s feelings were I do not know. As he was a man of much dignity, with an impassable 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 letters, were sad and depressed …
“Our conversation grew so pleasant that I almost forgot the object of our meeting.… General Lee called my attention to the object.”
The writing of surrender terms was explained by the Union commander: “When I put my pen to the paper I did not know the first word that I should make use of in writing the terms. I only knew what was in my mind, and I wished to express it clearly, so that there could be no mistaking it.”
When Grant finished his letter he beckoned his senior adjutant, Lieutenant Colonel T. S. Bowers, but this officer said he was “too nervous” to copy the document. Grant called Parker. Porter wrote:
“When he had finished the letter he called Colonel Parker … to his side and looked it over with him and directed him as they went along to interline six or seven words and to strike the word ‘their’ which had been repeated … he handed the book to General Lee and asked him to read over the letter.”
Lee’s deliberate movements fascinated the Federal staff. He placed Grant’s book on the table and took from a pocket a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, wiping the lenses carefully with a handkerchief. He crossed his legs with a squeaking of the new boots, and read slowly:
General R. E. Lee, Commanding C.S.A.
Appomattox Ct.H., Va., April 9, 1865
General: In accordance with the substance of my letter 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 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, and each company or regimental commander to 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 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 his home, not to be disturbed by the United States authorities so long as they observe their paroles, and the laws in force where they may reside. Very respectfully,
U. S. Grant, Lieutenant-General
Lee looked up when he had read the first of the two pages: “After the words, ‘until properly,’ the word ‘exchanged’ seems to be omitted. You doubtless intended to use that word.”
“Why yes, “Grant said. “I thought I had put it in.”
“With your permission I will mark where it should be inserted.”
“Certainly.”
Lee fished in a pocket for a pencil, but found none, and Horace Porter passed one to him. Lee continued to read, and all the while twisted the pencil nervously, or tapped delicately at the table with its point.
As Lee read Grant’s sentence allowing Confederate officers to keep their arms, horses and baggage, Porter noticed “a slight change of countenance … evidently touched by this act of generosity.”
“This will have a very happy effect upon my army,” Lee said.
“Unless you have some suggestions to make in regard to the form,” Grant said, “I will have a copy made in ink and sign it.”
Lee hesitated. “There is one thing I would like to mention. The cavalrymen and artillerymen in our army own their own horses. Our organization differs from yours. I would like to understand whether these men will be permitted to retain their horses.”
“You will find that the terms as written do not allow it,” Grant said. “Only the officers are allowed to take their private property.”
“No,” Lee said, “I see the terms do not allow it. That is clear.”
There was a subtle eloquence in Lee’s silence. Porter wrote: “His face showed plainly that he was quite anxious to have this concession made.”
Grant hurried as if he were embarrassed to have Lee make the request: “Well, the subject is quite new to me. Of course I did not know that any private soldiers owned their 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 it is doubtful whether they will be able to put in a crop and carry themselves and their families through next winter without their horses.
“I will arrange it in this way: I will not change the terms as they are written, but I will instruct the officers to let all the men who claim to own a horse or mule take the animals home with them to work their little farms.”
“This will have the best possible effect upon my men,” Lee said. “It will be very gratifying and will do much toward conciliating our people.”
Lee handed the book to Grant, who passed it to Parker. The Indian went to the rear of the room to write, but discovered that he was out of ink. He borrowed a small boxwood inkwell from Charles Marshall.
Marshall wrote a brief letter of acceptance of the terms for Lee, but was forced to change his draft when Lee read it.
“Don’t say, “I have the honor,’” Lee told the aide. “He is here. Just say, ‘I accept the terms.’”
When Marshall began to make a copy in ink, he found himself out of paper, and borrowed a few sheets from one of the Federal officers.
Quiet conversations began in the room. Grant introduced his officers to Lee. Porter said:
“He did not exhibit the slightest change of features during this ceremony until Parker was introduced to him.… When Lee saw Parker’s swarthy features he looked at him with evident surprise, and his eyes rested on him for several seconds. What was passing in his mind probably no one ever knew, but the natural surmise was that at first he mistook Parker for a Negro, and was struck with astonishment to find that the commander of the Union armies had one of that race on his personal staff.”
Porter’s surmise was in error, or he did not hear what passed between Lee and the Indian, for Parker recorded:
“After Lee had stared at me for a moment, he extended his hand and said, ‘I am glad to see one real American here.’ I shook his hand and said, ‘We are all Americans.’”
Lee spoke to General Seth Williams, whom he had known intimately since his days as commandant at West Point; he thanked Williams for having sent word of the safety of Custis. Williams responded with an attempt at jollity. Porter caught Lee’s reaction: “He did not unbend, or even relax the sternness of his features.”
Marshall sat beside Sheridan on the sofa, and provoked brief laughter.
“This is very pretty country,” the Federal said.
“General, I haven’t seen it by daylight. All my observations have been made at night, and I haven’t seen the country at all myself.”
Grant interrupted the chuckling Sheridan:
“General Lee has about a thousand or fifteen-hundred of our people prisoners and they are faring the same as his men, but he tells me his haven’t anything. Can you send them some rations?”
“Yes.”
“How many can you send?”
“Twenty-five thousand.”
There was more of this discussion, in the memory of Michael R. Morgan, Grant’s assistant Commissary General. Grant asked Morgan:
“Colonel, feed the Confederate army.”
“How many men are there?”
Grant turned to Lee. “How many men have you, General Lee?”
“Our books are lost,” Lee said. “Our organizations are broken up. The companies are mostly commanded by noncommissioned officers. We have nothing but what we have on our backs.…”
Morgan interrupted, “Say twenty-five thousand men?”
“Yes,” Lee said, “say twenty-five thousand.”
Morgan left the room, and outside found Colonel M. P. Small, Ord’s commissary general:
“Can you feed the Rebs?”
“I guess so,” Small said. Morgan thought his reply was given with confidence.
“All right. Send them three days’ rations. Fresh beef, salt, hard bread, coffee and sugar.” Small rode away.
Grant seemed unable to forget his dress, and looked at Lee’s sword again. “I started out from my camp several days ago without my sword,” he said. “And I have not seen my headquarters baggage since. I have been riding without side arms. I have generally worn a sword as little as possible.… I thought you would rather receive me as I was, than be detained.”
“I’m much obliged to you,” Lee said. “I’m very glad you did it in that way.”
There was a little more scattered conversation, some of it provided by Sheridan, who protested to Lee about the Confederate cavalry’s violation of the truce in the morning. Lee had in his hand two copies of Sheridan’s earlier note of complaint, and Sheridan asked for one of them.
Lee replied patiently, “I’m sorry. It is probable that my cavalry at that point of the line did not fully understand the agreement.”
Lee shook hands with Grant and left the room, followed by Marshall. It was 4 P.M.
Adam Badeau was at Grant’s elbow.
“This will live in history,” he said. Grant did not reply, but his expression gave Badeau an impression: “I am sure the idea had not occurred to him until I uttered it. The effect upon his fame, upon history, was not what he was considering.”
Sergeant Tucker had loosed Traveller’s bridle, sensibly, the watching General Forsyth thought. Traveller seemed to Forsyth “a fairly well-bred-looking gray in good heart though thin in flesh.” All three of the Confederate horses ate hungrily.
Forsyth was awaiting the end of the surrender conference with a ready pencil:
“I became aware from the movement of chairs within that it was about to break up. I had been sitting on the top step of the porch writing in my notebook, but I closed it at once, and stepping back on the porch leaned against the railing nearly opposite and to the left of the door, and expectantly waited.
“As I did so the inner door slowly opened and General Lee stood before me. As he paused for a few seconds … I took my first and last look at the great Confederate chieftain … a clear, ruddy complexion—just then suffused by a deep crimson flush, that rising from his neck overspread his face and even tinged his broad forehead … deep brown eyes, a firm but well-shaped Roman nose … an exquisitely mounted sword, attached to a gold-embroidered Russian leather belt, trailed loosely on the floor at his side, and in his right hand he carried a broad-brimmed soft gray felt hat, encircled by a golden cord, while in his left he held a pair of buckskin gauntlets. Booted and spurred, still vigorous and erect, he stood, bare-headed, looking out of the open doorway, sad-faced and weary.”
All the Federal officers snapped to salute as Lee crossed the porch. He returned this “mechanically but courteously,” Forsyth thought, and went to the head of the steps, all the while staring beyond the yard into the valley where the army waited. Forsyth wrote:
“Here he paused, and slowly drew on his gauntlets, smiting his gloved hands into each other several times after doing so, evidently utterly oblivious of his surroundings.
“Then, apparently recalling his thoughts, he glanced deliberately right and left, and not seeing his horse, he called in a hoarse, half-choked voice: ‘Orderly! Orderly!’”
Tucker called from below, “Here, General, here!” The sergeant slipped the bridle over Traveller’s neck, and Lee descended the steps to stand beside the animal until Tucker had finished. Forsyth still watched from the porch:
“As the orderly was buckling the throat latch the General reached up and drew the forelock out from under the brow-band, parted and smoothed it, and then gently patted the gray charger’s forehead in an absent-minded way, as one who loves horses, but whose thoughts are far away, might all unwittingly do. Then, as the orderly stepped aside, he caught up the bridle reins in his left hand, and seizing the pommel of the saddle with the same hand, he caught up the slack of the reins in his right hand, and placing it on the cantle he put his foot in the stirrup, and swung himself slowly and wearily, but nevertheless firmly, into the saddle (the old dragoon mount)… and as he did so there broke unguardedly from his lips a long, low, deep sigh, almost a groan in its intensity, while the flush on his neck seemed, if possible, to take on a still deeper hue.”
Marshall came down the steps behind Lee, slight and erect in his worn gray uniform, with his heavy spectacles giving him an expression of thoughtful anxiety. Forsyth surmised that, though Marshall looked rigidly before him, he missed nothing within range of his vision.
When Marshall had mounted, Lee urged Traveller through the yard. The orderly followed them at a slow walk.
In the crowded yard was a New York Tribune correspondent, Thaddeus S. Seybold. The reporter turned to a Confederate, a young aide of General Armistead Long, and, pointing to Lee, asked:
“Who’s that distinguished-looking officer?”
“That is the greatest man the country ever produced, General Robert E. Lee.”
Grant came down the steps, hurriedly, head down, and halted when he found Lee riding across his path. Grant looked up, and the two raised their hands in farewell. Grant mounted Cincinnati.
The Federal commander moved to the gate, then turned back, speaking to Sheridan, “Where will you make your headquarters tonight?”
“Here, or near here,” Sheridan said. “Right here in the yard, probably.”
“Very well, then. I’ll know where to find you. Good day.”
Sheridan was surrounded by officers on the porch, but he noted the departure of Lee:
“He mounted his chunky gray horse, and lifting his hat as he passed out of the yard, rode off toward his army, his arrival there being announced to us by cheering, which, as it progressed, varying in loudness, told he was riding through the bivouac of the Army of Northern Virginia.”
Joshua Chamberlain was almost in front of the McLean House with some of his Maine men:
“And just then the glad news came that General Lee had surrendered. Shortly after that we saw pass before us that sturdy Rebel leader.… He was dressed in the brilliant trappings of a Confederate army officer, and looked every inch the soldier that he was. A few moments after that our own beloved leader, General Grant … came riding by. How different he was in appearance from the conquered hero.”
Cadwallader did not leave the house with the departure of the commanders. He watched the brisk auction and looting of Wilmer McLean’s furnishings:
Custer bought one of the tables used in the conference for $25; Ord bought another for $50. Somehow Sheridan obtained another.
Officers besieged McLean on his porch, offering ever-higher prices for chairs which had been used by officers in the surrender room. McLean stubbornly refused.
Officers forced greenbacks into his hands, but McLean threw them on the porch. Officers hurried away in the crowd, carrying chairs and other pieces. When the confusion had subsided, a cavalryman rode up, handed McLean a ten-dollar bill. “This is for the Major’s chair,” he said, and galloped away. No one knew where the furniture had gone. Cadwallader wrote:
“Cane bottomed chairs were ruthlessly cut to pieces; the cane splits broken into pieces a few inches long, and parceled out among those who swarmed around. Haircloth upholstery was cut from chairs, and sofas was also cut into strips and patches and carried away.”
GRAY
Generals of both armies had occupied the courthouse village and posted cordons of sentries to keep common soldiers from the streets and buildings. Bottles were produced, and conviviality spread.
Robert Lee rode through the street as if it were empty, downhill toward the apple orchard where he had rested in the morning.
His troops were quick to guess what had been done. Regiments began destroying their flags, burning or burying them.
The 11th North Carolina officers, led by Captains E. R. Outlaw and M. R. Young, went into a roadside thicket, built a fire and made ready to burn their flag. Several officers tore strips from each of its color fields before throwing it into the flames. Outlaw saw his men squatting there, shedding “bitter and sorrowful tears.”
Some officers, expecting harsh treatment from the Federals, ripped off all insignia of rank, but in the 5th Alabama were rebuked by Colonel Edwin L. Hobson, who was commanding a brigade, but had been promoted so recently as to have only one star on each shoulder.
Hobson set an example by clipping the star from one shoulder and pinning it to the other, saying to his men, “I’m ready for the consequences, whatever they are.”
The 75th North Carolina was near the village as Lee passed. One of its officers said, “We drove our guns into the hard earth to tie our horses to, made a fire, burned our flag to keep the Yankees from getting it, and waited for further orders and something to eat.”
Thomas Devereux, the young North Carolinian, first thought of his slave, George. He went back to camp, gave the Negro boy one of the five remaining five-dollar gold pieces he had sewn in his uniform jacket, told him to take his horse, Trumps, and to go home, a free man. Devereux wrote:
“The poor fellow looked at me a moment in silence as if hardly understanding and then blubbered out, ‘Mars Thomas, I can’t do it. Ise gwine to stay with you. If you can stand a Yankee prison, I can too.’ I told him he’d not be allowed to go with me, and that he had better lose no time in doing as I said, but all to no avail. He took my hand and with the big tears running down his face said, ‘No, Mars Thomas, I dassent face Mammy without you. When I left home with you to join the army the last words Mammy said was, “Now George, you have the care of that child, and don’t you ever show your face to me without you bring him back with you, dead or alive.” Mars Thomas, I’ve got to mind Mammy and stay with you.’”
Fletcher Massie of Lamkin’s Battery had a guest, an irate young Federal officer “hot as pepper” because of the last-minute capture of his cannon that morning. When his anger had cooled, Massie returned the artillery to him.
Federal gunners hitched it and the caisson and took it out of the Confederate lines.
“You fooled us this morning,” the Federal lieutenant said. “They told us the way was open, and we came on. Your cavalry got all around us, and we didn’t get off a shot before they took the gun.”
Massie had also appropriated the fine horses the enemy had pulling the gun and caisson, but he had quickly traded them to friends, and replaced them with some of the bony, worn-out horses straying about the village. The enemy lieutenant saw he had been tricked, Massie said, “But he never said a word about it.”
Massie saw Lee passing, and joined a group of chattering officers:
“A group of us … agreed together that we would not go to prison, would cut our way through the lines some way or other, but we would not surrender to be captured and carried off.”
They heard the gossip from other men that all troops were to be paroled, and abandoned their scheme to escape.
Lee rode a few hundred yards into the orchard below, amid a swarm of Federal officers who looked curiously about. Colonel Talcott soon had a picket of the engineers to keep them out, and, in the words of Captain W. W. Blackford:
“General Lee occupied the shade of a tree … where he paced backwards and forwards all day long looking like a caged lion.…
“General Lee seemed to be in one of his savage moods … So his staff kept to their tree except when it was necessary to introduce the visitors. Quite a number came … some came from curiosity, or to see General Lee as friends in the old army. But General Lee shook hands with none of them. It was rather amusing to see the extreme deference shown by them to General Lee. When he would see Colonel Taylor coming with a party towards his tree he would halt in his pacing and stand at ‘attention’ and glare at them with a look which few men but he could assume. They would remove their hats entirely and stand bareheaded during the interview while General Lee sometimes gave a scant touch to his hat in return and sometimes did not even do that … the interviews were short.”
Dispatches went in and out of the orchard; rations were promised by the Federals, for immediate delivery. Men of the army were to be formally paroled, and Lee and his staff were the first to sign one of the little documents:
We, the undersigned prisoners of war belonging to the Army of Northern Virginia, having been this day surrendered by General Robert E. Lee, C.S. Army, commanding said army, to Lieutenant General U. S. Grant, commanding Armies of the United States, do hereby give our solemn parole of honor that we will not hereafter serve in the armies of the Confederate States, or in any military capacity whatever, against the United States of America, or render aid to the enemies of the latter, until properly exchanged, in such manner as shall be mutually approved by the respective authorities.
Done at Appomattox Courthouse, Va., this 9th day of April, 1865
R. E. Lee, General. W. H. Taylor, Lt. Col. and Asst. Adjt. Genl.…
The within named officers will not be disturbed by the United States authorities so long as they observe their parole and the laws in force where they may reside.
Near sunset Lee left the orchard and rode to his headquarters. His army seized the passage for an impromptu demonstration.
Among the first to catch sight of him was E. M. Boykin:
“As soon as it was seen it acted like an electric flash upon our men; they sprang to their feet, and, running to the roadside, commenced a wild cheering that roused our troops. As far as we could see they came running down the hillsides, and joining in, along the ground and through the woods and up into the sky, there went a tribute that has seldom been paid to mortal man.”
Tom Devereux had a glimpse:
“As he approached we could see the reins hanging loose on his horse’s neck and his head was sunk low on his breast. As the men began to cheer, he raised his head and hat in hand he passed by, his face flushed and his eyes ablaze. I was on the road side nearest to the Courthouse, and so did not know what passed at the other side of the line. Some said he halted and spoke a few words.… I saw none of it.”
Longstreet wrote:
“From force of habit a burst of salutations greeted him, but it quieted as suddenly as it arose. The road was packed by standing troops as he approached, the men with hats off, heads and hearts bowed down. As he passed they raised their heads and looked upon him with swimming eyes. Those who could find voice said good-bye, those who could not speak and were near, passed their hands gently over the sides of Traveller.
“He rode with his hat off, and had sufficient control to fix his eyes on a line between the ears of Traveller and look neither to right nor left until he reached a large white oak tree, where he dismounted to make his last headquarters, and finally talked a little.”
The commander passed a body of South Carolina infantry, among them a young private, Frank M. Mixson:
“We commenced yelling for Lee. The old man pulled off his hat, and with tears streaming down his cheeks, without a word, he rode through us … all were bowing heads with tears.”
John Gordon came in front of Lee before the end, to prepare the men. An Alabama private remembered:
“Soon Gordon came galloping down the road from the direction of the Federal lines and announced the terms of surrender as he passed, and asked the men to give General Lee ‘a hearty cheer, for he was feeling greatly depressed.’”
Captain Blackford followed Lee down the route, through the closely packed lines of men. He noted that Lee began to weep as soon as the cheers began, and rode with tears dropping into his beard, hat in hand, bowing his acknowledgment to the men:
“This exhibition of feeling on his part found quick response from the men, whose cheers changed to choking sobs as with streaming eyes and many cries of affection they waved their hats as he passed. Each group began in the same way with cheers and ended in the same way with sobs, all the way to his quarters. Grim bearded men threw themselves on the ground, covered their faces with their hands and wept like children. Officers … sat on their horses and cried aloud.”
One of the officers, Blackford saw, was the commander’s son, Rooney.
Blackford thought that Traveller enjoyed the attention; the horse acknowledged it by tossing his head, to the cheers of the men.
One soldier held out his arms to Lee. “I love you just as well as ever, General Lee!”
The commander soon reached his tent, and though Blackford knew that he said a few words to those crowding around him, he could not hear what was said.
Lieutenant George Mills of the 16th North Carolina was close by, and heard Lee’s brief speech:
“Boys, I have done the best I could for you. Go home now, and if you make as good citizens as you have soldiers, you will do well, and I shall always be proud of you. Goodbye, and God bless you all.”
Mills thought: “He seemed so full that he could say no more.”
Lee disappeared into his tent.
When the troops had quieted, General Armistead Long went into Federal lines with Colonel Thomas Carter of the artillery and two couriers, one of them young Percy Hawes. The boys were in a playful mood. Hawes wrote:
“On our way Owen and I concluded we would play a trick on the Yankee orderlies and make them hold our horses as well as our officers’ horses and that we would stand around in a quiet, dignified way as if we were officers.…
“As we approached General Ord’s headquarters the orderlies ran to hold our horses as eagerly as the average street gamin does during a holiday parade. We galloped up to the quarters and dismounted with all the dignity and style of men who knew they had done their duty.”
Long was in search of his brother-in-law, General E. V. Sumner, but did not find him. Sheridan appeared, and Long talked with Ord and the cavalryman.
“What’s become of Sumner?” Long asked.
“You fellows gave him such a drubbing this morning that Grant sent for him to know what was the matter with him,” Ord said.
Sheridan straightened and spoke in what Hawes thought an “indelicate” manner: “Ah, damn it, he ought to have been with me!”
General C. W. Field, the infantryman, was with his men when positive news of the surrender came. He had a brief memory of it: “I saw the tears streaming down the face of the chivalrous Colonel Coward of South Carolina. Some proposed that if I thought it honorable and would lead them, that they would try to cut their way out. Some few did leave, but I had their names surrendered as though they were present. I did not see Pickett’s Division at all, nor Kershaw’s but once.”
Federals flocked into the lines, and the army received them without animosity. E. M. Boykin wrote:
“Success had made them good-natured. Some came up and said:
“‘We’ve been fighting one another for four years. Give me a Confederate five dollar bill to remember you by.’”
Boykin found “nothing offensive” in their manner.
An officer of the 33rd North Carolina hung about the newly established tent of a Federal commissary officer:
“Give me some bread for my men, old fellow. They’ve had nothing for three days.”
“I can’t do it,” the bluecoat said. “But you walk around the tent carelessly and fill your haversack with crackers and loaf sugar and your canteen with whisky, and I won’t see you.”
The officer went out, laden, to cheer his men.
The private, I. G. Bradwell, found himself near the village in the late afternoon:
“We formed in line, so weak that we could hardly stand, in rags, facing the Yankees.… The silence was finally broken by someone in their ranks, and the whole line began to curse and use the most opprobrious language. This continued for some time, when an officer, riding to and fro in the rear of their line, spoke:
“‘These Confederate soldiers are brave men. If you were half as brave as they are, you’d have conquered them long ago. If I hear another cowardly scoundrel curse these men again, I’ll break my sword over his head.’”
The Rebels gave a shout for the Federal major, who disappeared.
Lieutenant Joseph Packard, late of Reserve Ordnance, was well dressed for the army’s final day. He had followed Captain Fred Colston’s example and put on the best of his uniform coats—one he had been issued at the opening of the war. And in the morning he had exchanged his sword, with its old Richmond-made scabbard, for a finer one captured from a Federal artilleryman.
Packard’s hat, alone, was disreputable, but he refused to part with it; he had worn it since just after Gettysburg, holes and all. In the afternoon he bought a spare cap from an enemy artilleryman, paying him, after a desperate scramble for negotiable values, “A five-cent piece, a three-cent piece, and a three-cent postage stamp.”
At night Packard made camp under a wagon cover on a hillside. It was not long before help came: “Our friends, the enemy, sent us some beef and crackers and to each officer a quart of whisky, which helped to pass the time.”
Many escaped. Fitz Lee, Colonel Elijah White and others had led remnants of the cavalry west, beyond the enemy screen, and W. P. Roberts, the boy cavalry general from North Carolina, had urged his staff to scatter; they were not included in the surrender.
Fitz Lee had an encounter with a Confederate infantryman on his road of escape, a veteran who was hurrying in the direction of the courthouse.
“Never mind, old man,” Fitz said. “You’re too late now. Lee has surrendered. You’d better go home.”
“What’s that, Lee surrendered?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
The soldier stared, tears filling his eyes, then blurted, “You can’t make me believe Uncle Robert has surrendered. It must’ve been that goddam Fitzhugh Lee!”
Among the fugitives in the Lynchburg road west of Appomattox, was young James W. Albright, who had, the night before, burned his letters and diary. After an all-night march, he somehow resumed the diary entries:
We halted in a complete trap. Saw the situation, and Captain Gregory and myself and one wagon—all that was left of the 12th Virginia Battalion that we could muster—marched for Lynchburg.… Lynchburg at 5 P.M. Heard the troops had surrendered. Told by officers to leave the guns, fill up with rations and go, if I didn’t want to be caught.
William Graham, the Georgia private who had wandered from the army with his companions, ate breakfast with a family named Jimerson in the back country, and made an attempt to dispense justice:
“Mrs. J. tells us that we are welcome to anything she has but after we are finished eating she just wants the whole party to go back to the next house, the one just passed, Mixon’s, and help ourselves to some of his flour and lard and meat—that he has a smoke house full of such things—and refuses to feed a single soldier—but pleads poverty and sends all comers to Mr. Jimerson’s, a really poor man.
“Forbes and three others determine to go back and make the rascal disgorge. When they get there and make known their intention Mixon talks pretty independently at first and rather dares them to help themselves.
“Kelly, one of the men, thereupon gets a rail and very deliberately proceeds to batter open his smoke house door. When Mixon sees his determination he offers to open the door—but the lock had been injured by the blows from the rail and refused to be opened and to make a long story short Forbes relents and returns to us sans meat, sans flour, sans everything he went after. A more wishy washy enterprise never had a more ignominious end.”
They were several miles on the main road west when these men were overtaken by Confederate cavalry, who hailed them, “Throw away your guns, boys. You’ll not need ’em now. Lee’s surrendered the army.”
Graham wrote: “Of course we consider it a hoax at first, but when party after party pass us unarmed repeating the same story—we are bound to believe it. Presently a general comes along and corroborates the statements of the others.”
The party of four separated, two of them going toward Petersburg, and Graham with one companion turning south. They heard one final sound from the armies back at the courthouse village:
“This evening we hear the booming of the cannon, the Yankees are firing a salute.”
John L. G. Woods, the drummerboy of the 53rd Georgia, had slept in a camp of strange cavalrymen on the Lynchburg road:
“I never slept more soundly in my life and didn’t wake up next morning until the sun was about two hours high. To my utter surprise not a soul did I see anywhere. The cavalry, my horse, and all were gone.
“I had tied my horse securely and as close to me as possible, yet he was gone. I felt cheap, sad and lonely. Resuming my tramp on to Lynchburg, I entered the city about noon.”
There were few final details to be attended at Robert Lee’s headquarters in the evening. The ordnance department reported that it had a large amount of U. S. currency, and asked what should be done with it. Lee sent the problem to Long-street, who wrote:
“As it was not known or included in the conditions of capitulation, and was due (ten times more) to the faithful troops, I suggested a pro rata distribution of it. The officer afterwards brought $300 as my part. I took $100 and asked to have the balance distributed among Field’s division—the troops most distant from their homes.”
Colonel Charles Marshall saw Lee once more this night:
“General Lee sat with several of us at a fire in front of his tent, and after some conversation about the army and the events of the day in which his feelings towards his men were strongly expressed, he told me to prepare an order to his troops.”
Private Frank Mixson and others of his regiment were ordered to camp:
“That evening we were taken into the oak grove and put in the Bull Pen, as we called it. This was only going into bivouac with a guard around us, but not a Yankee guard … our own men for guards.”
They were not allowed out of their lines, nor were the curious Federals permitted to enter: “But they hung around and seemed surprised that they had such a hard time in overwhelming such a crowd of ragamuffins.”
These South Carolinians stumbled upon a treasure—a barn filled with corn inside their prison pen. “We were soon scrambling for this and men could be seen going in all directions with an armful of this corn. It looked exactly like each man was going to feed a horse.… We now filled up on our parched corn, and by good dark everybody seemed to be asleep. The first sleep we had had for seven days and nights, since we left Richmond.”
Somewhere nearby a North Carolina soldier mourned: “Damn me if I ever love another country.”
From Danville to the west, Jefferson Davis hopefully sent Robert Lee a telegraph message during the day:
… I had hoped to have seen you at an earlier period, and trust soon to meet you. The Secretary of War, Quartermaster General, Commissary General and Chief Engineer have not arrived. Their absence is embarrassing. We have here provisions and clothing for your army and they are held for its use.
You will realize the reluctance I feel to leave the soil of Virginia and appreciate my anxiety to win success North of the Roanoke. The few stragglers who came from your army are stopped here and at Staunton Bridge. They are, generally, however, without arms.… I hope soon to hear from you at this point, where offices have been opened to keep up the current business until more definite knowledge would enable us to form more permanent plans. May God preserve, sustain and guide you.
BLUE
Old George Meade’s ailment was miraculously cured.
His headquarters party lounged about his ambulance until almost 5 P.M., with a few rumors circulating among them, but uncertainty still in the air. General Humphreys amused the younger officers; he had found a barrel of Confederate money in some captured wagons, and passed it about. Colonel Lyman wrote:
“It was a strange spectacle, to see the officers laughing and giving each other $500 notes of a government that has been considered as firmly established by our English friends!”
The news came soon thereafter. Charles Pease rode in shouting, “He’s surrendered!”
Generals led the staff in cheers, three for the army, and then three for Meade. One general dashed off to take the news to the 2nd and 6th Corps, in adjoining camps. Lyman sketched the scene:
“The soldiers rushed, perfectly crazy, to the roadside, and there crowding in dense masses, shouted, screamed, yelled, threw up their hats and hopped madly up and down! The batteries were run out and began firing, the bands played, the flags waved. The noise of the cheering was such that my very ears rang. And there was General Meade galloping about and waving his cap with the best of them!
“Poor old Robert Lee! His punishment is too heavy—to hear those cheers, and to remember what he once was! God willing, before many weeks, or even days, I shall be at home, to campaign no more!”
U. S. Grant lost none of his calm, but he forgot himself, and was well along the road toward his camp before an officer jogged his memory:
“General, hadn’t you better notify Washington of the surrender?”
Grant dismounted and on a roadside bank wrote a telegram:
Headquarters Appomattox C.H. Va.
April 9th, 1865, 4:30 P.M.
Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War,
Washington
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,
Lieut.-General.
When the party reached the commander’s tent, officers took chairs nearby, anxious to hear his comments on Lee, the South and the end of the war. Grant settled in comfort and turned to Rufus Ingalls, asking him if he remembered an old white mule one of their friends had ridden in the Mexican War.
“Why, perfectly,” Ingalls said, and Grant was off on a long reminiscence about army life in Mexico, and said nothing of the war he had ended during the day. It was after supper before he mentioned Lee or the Confederacy, and then was disappointing to Horace Porter and his companions. Grant said merely that he thought other Rebels would follow Lee’s example, and quit fighting. He surprised all of them with an announcement:
“I’m going on to Washington tomorrow.”
When the others had gone, and Grant was alone in his tent with Adam Badeau, he became talkative. Badeau wrote:
“I had been used to sit up with him late into the night, to write his letters or keep him company, for he could not sleep early. Then he always talked with greater freedom than at any other time. This night we spoke of the terms he had granted Lee. There were some of his officers who disliked the idea of paroles, and thought at least the highest of the rebels should have been differently dealt with—held for trial.
“This was not my feeling, and I spoke of the effect his magnanimity was sure to have upon the country and the world. He was not averse to listen.”
At the end Grant said quietly, “I’ll keep the terms, no matter who’s opposed. But Lincoln is sure to be on my side.”
Grant had shown one sign of firmness with his troops in the evening: When the guns began firing salutes amid wild cheering, he had them stopped. “The Confederates were now our prisoners, and we did not want to exult over their downfall.”
Cadwallader played a final joke on Orville Babcock in the evening. The reporter found Babcock pompous in his flourishing of a pencil he had from Robert Lee as a souvenir in the morning; the colonel showed it to everyone who came along, announcing it as his only trophy of four years of war. Cadwallader wrote:
“The staff were badgering him about it till night, wanting to buy it, to trade for it, and making him all manner of extravagant offers for it, and proposing every ludicrous exchange for it their waggish propensities could think of, ranging from broken jack knives to a fine-tooth comb.”
The reporter at last persuaded Babcock to let him cut off a small piece of the pencil for himself.
“Just one inch, now. Promise you won’t take a whit more, or you can’t have it.”
Cadwallader made a solemn promise, and then took off his inch from the point, returning to Babcock the butt end of his ruined souvenir. The staff howled with laughter.
Rain began in the night, softly at first, then drumming hard on the ancient tavern and courthouse of the village, and the tents and wagons and thickets where the armies lay.
RICHMOND
Judith Brockenbrough McGuire wanted to pay another visit to Mrs. Robert E. Lee in the Franklin Street house, but “had no heart to go.”
She heard from friends of the invalid Mary’s incredible persistence, even when she had been told of the surrender at Appomattox:
“General Lee is not the Confederacy. There is life in the old land yet.”
John Beauchamp Jones went to church this Palm Sunday, where he noted that the prayer for the President of the United States was omitted, as had been agreed with the Federal authorities. In the afternoon his pastor, The Rev. Mr. Dashiell, called on Jones.
The weather was bright and beautiful in the city and many people were in the streets. Jones wrote:
Confederate money is valueless, and we have no Federal money. To such extremity are some of the best and wealthiest families reduced, that the ladies are daily engaged in making pies and cakes for the Yankee soldiers of all colors, that they may obtain enough greenbacks to purchase such articles as are daily required in their housekeeping.
At 10 P.M. big guns from forts across the James jarred the city. The Federals fired one hundred guns before it was over—a gigantic salute. Bands seemed to spring from everywhere, blaring over the water when the echoes of the artillery died. Jones was mystified until he asked the guard patrolling before his house:
“A dispatch from Grant,” the soldier said, “announcing the surrender of Lee.”
Phoebe Pember saw growing distress among the city’s people on her forays from the hospital:
“Strange exchanges were made on the streets of tea, coffee, flour, and bacon. Those who were fortunate in having a stock of household necessaries were generous in the extreme to their less wealthy neighbors, but the destitution was terrible. The Sanitary Commission shops were opened, and commissioners were appointed by the Federals to visit the people and … draw rations, but to effect this after receiving tickets required so many appeals to different officials, that decent people soon gave up the effort.
“Besides, the musty cornmeal and strong codfish were not appreciated by fastidious stomachs—few gentle natures could relish such unfamiliar food.”
The Federal surgeons overcame Phoebe at last; they moved her Confederate patients to a smaller hospital and took over Chimborazo for the Union army. The ladies of her new neighborhood helped by bringing meager supplies from their homes. Within a few days Phoebe had worked herself out of a job, for the last of her invalids was well enough to walk—or had died.
She had no way to draw rations, and found herself with nothing but a box of useless Confederate money and a silver ten-cent piece. She made a final purchase: A box of matches and five cocoanut cakes. In the morning she discovered that kind neighbors had left some food at her door.
Sallie Brock Putnam, like many women of the city, had overcome her fears since the start of occupation, and could now speak with asperity of Richmond businessmen who had fleeced the public.
She had seen a woman friend on Franklin Street on last Monday, when the Yankees came in. The woman had carried a tiny vial of paregoric.
“I just bought this on Main Street at my old friend’s drugstore,” the indignant woman said. “The town is burning, and yet for this spoonful of medicine for a sick servant, I had to pay five dollars.”
Sallie Putnam now took satisfaction in noting that the drugstore had been gutted by the fire. She wrote piously; “This incident points a moral which all can apply.”
Sallie kept a close eye on the lone newspaper, the Yankee-toned Whig, and noticed that within a week civilians in the city had drawn almost 18,000 ration tickets from Federal headquarters. At least a third of Richmond’s people, she calculated, “were driven to the humiliation of subsisting alone on supplies of food furnished them by the conquerors.”
This food, “of the coarsest and most substantial kind,” was taken gratefully by most of Richmond’s hungry, but the loyal Sallie concluded that most of them ate with “sickened hearts.”
Cornelia Hancock, a Federal nurse, entered the city during the day. She left her hospital at City Point during idle hours, since patients had been shipped to Washington to prepare for an expected tide of casualties after Lee’s surrender.
They took horses on the river steamer and cruised in the sunshine:
“The lower part of the city was smoldering with the fire started by the rebels. The white people were all hidden in their houses, but the colored people were jubilant and on the streets in gay attire. We visited Libby Prison that was at this time filled with rebel prisoners. Flowers were blooming … beauty was apparent even in the desolate and dejected city.”
Cornelia visited many places in the city, but was most impressed with the fact that General Weitzel actually had made quarters in the mansion of Jefferson Davis, and that “perfect order prevails.”
After dark she was back at the hospital, and felt a strange loneliness: “After nightfall I walk up and down my long deserted stockade. I see the great change from war to no war, and brace myself for a new order of things.”
MR. LINCOLN
The River Queen entered the Potomac estuary in the early morning, beginning to labor as she fought the tide; for several hours her deck was swept with spray. Later, between narrowing banks, the steamer pushed smoothly upstream.
Stewards passed among the passengers, but refrained from offering champagne to Mr. Lincoln, as they had on the rough downward voyage. He had amused them with his reply:
“No, my young friend. I have seen many a man in my time, seasick ashore from drinking that very article.”
Lincoln entertained his guests in the salon, and Senator Sumner, his cultivated adversary, was surprised by a Lincoln he had never seen.
Lincoln read to them for an hour or more from Shakespeare, especially from Macbeth. Count de Chambrun thought the speech of Macbeth after the murder of Duncan especially dramatic in Lincoln’s quiet reading. The Frenchman wrote:
“Now and then he paused to expatiate on how exact a picture Shakespeare here gives of a murderer’s mind when, the dark deed achieved, its perpetrator already envies his victim’s calm sleep. He read the scene over twice.”
The President left an indelible memory with de Chambrun and Sumner in particular as he repeated the lines with an obvious familiarity:
“Duncan is in his grave;
After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing
Can touch him further.”
Lincoln recited from other works—poetry, too. He droned a few verses of Longfellow’s Resignation:
“… The air is full of farewells to the dying,
And mournings for the dead …
We see but dimly through the mists and vapors;
Amid these earthly damps
What seem to us but sad funeral tapers
May be heaven’s distant lamps.”
As the afternoon wore on and the boat made a great turn of the river, Mount Vernon came into sight. Adolphe de Chambrun was stirred. He turned to Lincoln.
“Mount Vernon, with all its memories of Washington, will be no more honored in America than your own home in Springfield.”
Lincoln broke his gaze at Mount Vernon’s hill “as though awakened from a trance” and said, “Springfield! How glad I’ll be to get back there—peace and tranquillity.”
The party was soon at the dock in Washington. Sumner, de Chambrun and the Lincoln party rode in the Presidential carriage.
As they rolled toward Washington, Mrs. Lincoln broke her silence, looking ahead:
“That city is full of enemies!”
Lincoln turned with what de Chambrun thought “an impatient gesture” and spoke to her:
“Enemies! Never again must we repeat that word.”
William Crook, the bodyguard, wrote of the approach to the city:
“When the carriage left the wharf the streets were alive with people, all very much excited. There were bonfires everywhere.… We halted the carriage and asked a bystander, ‘What has happened?’
“He looked at us in amazement, not recognizing Mr. Lincoln.
“‘Why, where have you been? Lee has surrendered.’”