Lee's Surrender

HIS 269 The Civil War and Reconstruction
Grant's Surrender Order to Lee, April 9, 1865

One the most remarkable things about the Civil War is the way it all ended. After four years of bitter bloodshed, during which at least two million men served and 620,000 died, the Army of Northern Virginia stacked its weapons and quietly disbanded on April 12, 1865. As word spread, the remaining Confederate armies followed suit.

A month earlier President Lincoln had urged, “with malice toward none, with firmness in the right, let us strive... to bind up the nation’s wounds [for] a just and lasting peace.” As Jay Winik writes, the end of the American Civil War “defied millenniums of tradition in which rebellions typically ended in yet a greater shedding of blood” [Winik, April 1865]. “Men were not hanged, they were saluted; they were not jailed, they were honored; they were not humiliated or beaten, they were embraced. Some of this was by design; much of it occurred totally spontaneously. All of it mattered.”

The defeated South was not pillaged, dismantled, or permanently occupied. Upon ratification of constitutional amendments formally abolishing slavery and establishing the rights of freedmen, home rule was reinstated and Federal troops were withdrawn. The same eleven states that seceded were restored; their standing was equal to that of the Union states, and the nation was whole again. People still can debate the political theory of state sovereignty and the right of secession, but it was effectively settled on battlefields with names like Antietam, Gettysburg, and Shiloh.

Acceptance of defeat and reunification was not unanimous. Confederate President Jefferson Davis and many Southern civilians failed to see what Robert E. Lee knew: carrying on a partisan fight would serve no purpose other than to prolong the destruction. Lee knew the end was close as soon as he was forced to flee the trenches at Petersburg on April 2nd, abandoning the Confederate capital in Richmond; but he vainly tried to hold the remains of his army together as long as there was a chance to carry on the fight. On April 9th he knew the fight was over. General Ulysses S. Grant had been patiently urging Lee to surrender since April 7th, and finally Lee sent word that he was ready to meet “to discuss the terms of the surrender of [the Army of Northern Virginia] in accordance with [Grant’s] offer.”

The historic meeting took place at 1:30 p.m. that afternoon at a farmhouse in Appomattox Courthouse. Lee arrived first, wearing his dress uniform. Grant came in his muddy field uniform. The two men awkwardly exchanged pleasantries and then Grant wrote out his terms [see digital copy of original]:

Head Quarters of the Armies of the United States
Appomattox C.H. Va. Apl 9th 1865

Gen. R. E. Lee
Comd'g C.S.A.

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 N. Va. on the following terms to wit; Rolls of all the officers and men be made in duplicate, one copy to be given to an officer to be 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 exchanged, 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 officer appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the side arms of the officers nor their private horses or baggage. This done each officer and man will be allowed to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by United States authority as long as they observe their parole and the laws in force where they may reside—

Very Respectfully
U. S. Grant
Lt. Gen

Upon review of the surrender order, Lee was struck by the generosity of Grant’s terms. The Army of Northern Virginia would not be paraded through the streets of Washington; the officers would not be prosecuted for treason; they were all free to go home in peace. Lee commented, “This will have a very happy effect upon the army.” Then a moment later he cautiously raised a point: “The cavalrymen and artillerists own their own horses in our army. . . . I should like to understand whether these men will be permitted to retain their horses.” Grant replied, “You will find that the terms as written do not allow for this, only the officers are permitted to take their private property.” Lee acknowledged: “the terms do not allow it, that is clear.” In this awkward moment Grant made a magnanimous gesture: “I will not change the terms as now written, but I will instruct the officers I shall appoint to receive the paroles to let all men who claim to own a horse or a mule [to] take the animals home with them to their little farms.” Lee immediately answered, “This will have the best possible effect upon the men. It will be very gratifying and will do much toward conciliating our people.”

After an exchange of handshakes and salutes, Lee returned to his men. The next day he issued General Order Number 9, instructing his men to accept the terms of the surrender and go home. As word spread, Federal artillery began to fire salutes and Grant sternly ordered that it stop. Later in his memoirs Grant explained that he “did not want to exult over their downfall.” The example of these two great men did much to set the stage for national reunification: Grant, magnanimous and respectful in victory, Lee, gracious and dignified in defeat.

The formal surrender ceremony took place on April 12 in the same manner. The presiding Federal officer was General Joshua Chamberlain. A college professor when the war began, Chamberlain had been at Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and over a dozen other engagements. Wounded six times and thought to be dying after a bullet shattered his pelvis at Petersburg, he would later receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroic defense of Little Round Top at Gettysburg.

Presiding over the Confederate surrender was General John B. Gordon, himself wounded five times during the war and a frequent adversary of Chamberlain. As the pathetic columns of Lee’s defeated army proudly approached, Chamberlain was profoundly moved. Spontaneously, he suddenly gave the order for Federal troops to “carry arms” as a sign of military respect. A bugle called and all along the road Union soldiers raised their muskets to their shoulders, the salute of honor. Chamberlain later recalled how Gordon instantly wheeled his horse, bowed, and dropped the tip of his sword to his toe in salutation, then gave the order to his men to carry arms in return, “honor answering honor.” For several hours the Confederates stacked their muskets and gently folded their tattered battle flags.

Two days later John Wilkes Booth mortally wounded Lincoln, and for a short time it seemed that the peaceful conclusion of the war might be shattered. But there were no retributions; Lincoln’s call “to bind up the nation’s wounds” with charity and without malice was answered. Many Blue and Gray generals had been friends before the war, and they easily put the war behind them. There was a grand military review in Washington for the victorious Soldiers in Blue, but the citizen soldiers on both sides left their bitterness on the battlefield and went home.

There was never any hint of affection between Grant and Lee, and their relationship remained cool; but there was a mutual respect and a shared allegiance to values more important, more sacred, than personal feelings. In June a federal prosecutor indicted Lee and other Confederate army leaders for treason. In a fit of rage, Grant went straight to the White House and confronted President Andrew Johnson, demanding that the paroles granted to Lee and his men at Appomattox be honored. Johnson backed down and the charges were dropped. Lee went on to become president of a small college in Lexington, Virginia. Grant was twice elected President of the United States. Few words were exchanged between them after the war, but both men tirelessly worked for peaceful reconciliation of the North and South for the rest of their lives.