On This Day: April 9, 1865

A seminal moment in American history.

APRIL 7, 1865

General R. E. LEE:

GENERAL: The result of the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in this struggle. I feel that it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood, by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the C. S. Army known as the Army of Northern Virginia.

U.S. GRANT, Lieutenant-General

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA, APRIL 7, 1865

Lieut. Gen. U.S. GRANT:

GENERAL: I have received your note of this date. Though not entertaining the opinion you express on the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia, I reciprocate your desire to avoid useless effusion of blood, and therefore, before considering your proposition, ask the terms you will offer on condition of its surrender.

R. E. LEE, General.

Two days later

The man clad in grey arrived first. His uniform was immaculate. His beard, well groomed. Yet General Lee’s countenance betrayed a great sadness. Over the last week his army had been pursued relentlessly by Union forces that vastly outnumbered his own. Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, had fallen six days ago. William Sherman and his Division of the Mississippi had blitzed through South Carolina and were fighting through North Carolina en route to Virginia. Georgia had been sliced in half. The west was lost. The Confederacy was collapsing in on itself like a house on fire. Robert E. Lee, the wily old fox, had acknowledged the game was up.

The man in blue arrived in his typical simple and unassuming way. He wore a dirty jacket issued to privates in the Union Army. His boots were splattered with mud. Like his Confederate counterpart, Ulysses S. Grant, commander-in-chief of all Union forces, was downcast. 

I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.” -The Memoirs of General Ulysses S. Grant, Chapter 67

The two gentlemen met and shook hands. For a while they chatted about their experiences in the army during the war with Mexico. Grant recounted in his memoirs that their conversation was so pleasant he temporarily forgot the purpose of their meeting. Lee eventually brought the discussion back to the task at hand. The draft of surrender terms written by Grant’s staff stipulated that all horses and side arms in the possession of the Army of Northern Virginia were to be handed over to the Union. Lee remarked that unlike the Union Army, Confederate artillerists and cavalry owned the steeds they rode into battle. Grant recognized the importance of this distinction. Grant amended the surrender terms, allowing Confederate soldiers to retain their horses and other personal property. Lee was pleased and told Grant that this would have a “happy affect” on his men.

Ely Parker, a Native American of the Seneca tribe and member of Grant’s staff, inscribed the final articles of surrender that Lee signed. Upon being informed of Parker’s heritage, Lee said, “It is good to have one real American here.” “Sir, we are all Americans,” Parker responded. Lee and Grant shook hands again. Lee mounted his horse, Traveler, and left to rejoin his army. 

The war was over. As Lee rode off into the distance Union troops began to cheer. Grant ordered them to stop. “The Confederates were now our countrymen, and we did not want to exult over their downfall," he said.

U.S. Grant’s magnanimous surrender terms and personal conduct at Appomattox Court House did much to heal a divided nation. His actions set a profound precedent: the South had been beaten but it was not to be vilified. In the years to come, the South was reintegrated into the union and accepted back into the American system. 

For some this reintegration went too smoothly. After the war, little changed for African Americans. Though Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had legally abolished slavery, African Americans still faced unrelenting discrimination and an angry South looking for a scapegoat and a punching bag. During Grant’s presidency the Federal government cracked down on Southern paramilitary groups like the KKK in an attempt to dissuade white supremacists from intimidating minorities. Following administrations were not so assertive. The truth was that, in the aftermath of a costly civil war, the North did not possess the political will to keep Southern reformation on track. Hundreds of miles removed from the land of Jim Crow and men in white cloaks burning crosses, it was easy for most Northerners to feign ignorance. As a result, America would struggle with racial conflict and abuse for another century before something was done about it.

But the legacy of the Civil War and Reconstruction is not just the unresolved questions of race and rights it raised, it is also the gracious and temperate response of the victors. Grant, Lincoln and other Union leaders could have imposed harsh terms on their rebellious brethren or at the very least, shamed them for their actions. The South deserved such treatment. Yet, history, the great laboratory of human behavior, would prove the wisdom of the North's generosity.

Half a century after the events at Appomattox Court House, the Allies would impose harsh terms upon the German Empire in the agreement which ended the First World War. The Treaty of Versailles, as it became known, was the product of a French nation that had suffered horrific losses in men and material, and a British nation terrified of future conflict by land or sea. At the negotiating table British and French leaders forced a brutal punishment upon the defeated. Germany was made a second-class power unable to defend even her territorial integrity. The treaty also created the League of Nations, the world's first global body of arbitration, to resolve conflicts by words rather than wars. Germany was excluded from membership and made an international pariah. The proud German peoples, once flush with victory and filled with hope for the future, had been brought low. Bitterness and resentment bubbled up from the Rhine to the Oder. A decade and a half later, this atmosphere would be brilliantly exploited by a member of the National Socialist party, Adolf Hitler. He would feed German fears, stoke their anger and tell them they could regain their lost honor. In the end, Hitler’s plans did not restore Germany’s status. Instead, they decimated a generation of young men, heaped infamy upon his country and pulled the whole globe into conflict.  

Unlike the embittered French and British leaders who framed the Treaty of Versailles, Union leaders did not revel in their victory or abuse the power they wielded over the defeated. America avoided the lingering bitterness and resentment seized upon by the Nazis over half a century later. Perhaps these actions also averted another disastrous conflict motivated by vengeance and shame. This was only possible because men like Ulysses S. Grant and Abraham Lincoln rose above their passions and righteous indignation of the moment. Their magnanimous conduct shaped a better future for the United States, a better future not just for those who had served the Union but for all Americans. 

“I do not impugn the motives of anyone opposed to me. It is no pleasure to me to triumph over anyone.” -Abraham Lincoln