The moment it all started to go badly, badly wrong for the Founders’ America.
The Guns Fell Silent at Appomattox, and the Reconciliation Began
Early morning, Palm Sunday, April 9, 1865: The rebel yell of the ragged, half-starved Army of Northern Virginia rang out for the last time. Sheridan’s Union cavalry had swung around Appomattox Court House to the southwest and captured the trains carrying the food and supplies Lee so desperately needed, but it was, after all, just cavalry, and if the Confederates could break through them, recapture the supplies, and then head south to link up with Johnston’s Army, the cause might still survive.Over the cavalry, the Rebels prevailed, but as the Union troopers withdrew and they crested the ridge, they could see solid lines of Union infantry arriving in the distance beyond them. The trap was closed.
Two days before, Lee had received the following letter:
General R.E. Lee
Commanding C.S.A.
The results of 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 Confederate States army known as the Army of Northern Virginia.
U.S. Grant
Lieut. General
Lee responded by asking what the conditions would be, to which Grant replied that “…the men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms again against the Government of United States until properly exchanged.”
Lee replied that he would be willing to meet, not to surrender, but merely to discuss the overall terms of peace with the Confederacy. Grant, suffering from a severe migraine, simply replied that he had no authority for such a discussion, saying to an aide through the pain, “It looks as if Lee still means to fight.”
Now that the trap was closed, Lee faced the inevitable: “There is nothing left for me to do but to go and see General Grant. I would rather die a thousand deaths.”
He asked his old “warhorse,” Gen. James “Petey” Longstreet, if Grant’s terms would be harsh, but “Petey” had been an old friend of Grant back in their West Point days, and told Lee he thought not.
Upon receiving Lee’s request for an interview to ascertain the details of surrender, Grant’s headache instantly vanished. A cease-fire was arranged so the two could meet, and at last the guns fell silent. A stately farmhouse owned by Wilmer McLean was selected. Ironically, he had moved out to Appomattox to get away from the war, since one of the first cannon shots at Bull Run had gone through his living room. Grant and his officers arrived half an hour after Lee. Grant wore a private’s blouse with nothing to distinguish his status but the three star epaulettes. His boots and pants were muddy, since he was fresh from reconnoitering his lines. Lee, on the other hand, was resplendent in his dress uniform, with sash and bejeweled sword.
After handshakes and small talk, it was Lee who politely suggested they get to the matter and asked Grant to write out the terms so that they may be formally accepted. Grant began to write the draft, which read in pertinent part: “The officers to give their individual paroles not to take up arms until properly exchanged, and each company or regimental commander 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…”
Then Grant eyed the bejeweled sword Lee had by his side, evidently brought to perform the humiliating act of handing it over to the victor, and continued to write, “This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses and baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by the United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside.”
That was it – ALL of it. Stack arms and colors, swear parole, and go home. Full amnesty.
Lee was nothing short of astonished at the unanticipated magnanimity and even personal warmth Grant extended towards himself and his ragged, weary boys that day, as would many others be in the years to come. Rightly so, I think; Grant’s tacit refusal to rub Lee’s and his vanquished army’s noses in the bitter dregs of their grinding, agonizing defeat and treat the Confederates not as a despised enemy but with respect, humility, and restraint was a brilliant first step towards binding up a national wound that could easily have proved fatal in the years following the Appomattox agreement—this, after so assiduously building for himself a reputation as perhaps the hardest of hard-war men.
In fact, Grant went from there to be roundly vilified in certain Northern quarters as either soft-hearted or soft-headed, or maybe a bit of both, for declining to harshly punish the Army of Northern Virginia and its general officer corps for their purported “treason.” “Treason,” the fire-eaters of the North snarled, even though never at any point had the Southern Confederacy evinced any ambition to overthrow the Federal government, wishing only to depart from the Union in peace and be let alone.
Which, of course, is why some of us unreconstructed Southrons still insist on referring to it as the War of Northern Aggression to this very day.
I’ve always considered Wilmer McClean’s unsuccessful attempt to remove himself from the immediate physical exigencies of war by fleeing his ancestral farm in Manassas (called Yorkshire Plantation, being used at that time by Gen Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard as his HQ) and heading further South for what he fervently hoped would be quieter, less turbulent digs near Appomattox Court House to be one of the most bizarre, intriguing, and poignant episodes to emerge from a historical cataclysm that produced a plenitude of such tales. It’s one of the many, many reasons I’ve always found Civil War history such an absorbing subject, and have read basically any and everything on it I could get my hands on since I was, oh, about 13 or so.
And as far as THAT goes, if you’re a proud son of the South and haven’t read anything by the incredible Shelby Foote yet…honeychile, what on Earth are you waiting for, anyhoo?
- Entries
Bruce Catton’s writings also should not be missed. Granted, there is a much more Northern tenor to his writing. (And, yes, I read Foote’s trilogy twice before reading all of Catton’s. )
One hundred percent agreed on Catton, friend. In fact, I had already worked my way through most of his work before I had even heard of Shelby Foote at all.