This past week saw the 146th anniversary of the historic surrender of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in the parlor of the Wilbur McLean house in Appomattox, Virginia.
Five days previously, Lee notified Richmond that he could no longer hold the Petersburg line after a 292-day siege, the Confederate government dissolved and President Jefferson Davis, his Secretary of State Judah Benjamin, and his secretary of war, John C. Breckinridge fled for their lives in fear that they would be executed for treason if captured.
Lee, meanwhile, withdrew to Amelia Courthouse southwest of Richmond expecting to find a trainload of provisions there for his starving troops. Finding no train, he sent wagons into the countryside to forage and lost a day in his march west to outflank Grant and to prevent Grant from outflanking him.
Plan B was to march to Appomattox Station where Lee hoped he would find another supply train. But his army was attacked on April 6 at Sayler’s Creek and delayed by a battle that cost the surrender of 7,700 of Lee’s men, including Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell, a senior commander, and eight other generals. Lt. General A. P. Hill had been killed by a sniper on the last day of the Petersburg Siege, so the loss of Ewell dealt Lee’s officer corps a severe blow.
Arriving at Appomattox Station on April 8, Lee found that Maj. Gen. George Armstrong Custer (later to be killed by Indians at the Little Big Horn) had captured and burned three supply trains waiting for Lee. Lee therefore began planning his next move westward toward Lynchburg, Virginia where he expected yet another supply train would be waiting.
On April 7 Lee had received a note from Grant suggesting that the hopelessness of more fighting must be apparent to Lee and that it might be time to consider surrendering the Army of Northern Virginia to prevent “the further effusion of blood.” In a return Lee wrote to Grant:
Though not entertaining the opinion you express of 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.
Grant had a reputation for accepting only unconditional surrenders. But on April 8, Lee received Grant’s reply:
I would say that, peace being my great desire, there is but one condition I would insist upon,--namely, that the men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged.
Believing that only Union cavalry lay between his army and Lynchburg, Lee launched an attack at dawn on April 9 under the command of Maj. Gen. John B. Gordon. Suffering from the stress of continual combat and a migraine headache, Grant commented to his commanders, “It looks as if Lee still means to fight.”
Gordon’s attack crashed through the front line Union cavalry and occupied a ridge behind the Union cavalry line where the Confederate advance troops could see two corps of Union infantry drawn up in battle positions. Notifying Lee of the unexpected army that had blocked their escape, most of the Confederate senior generals agreed that surrender was the only option left. Lee’s response was "Then there is nothing left for me to do but to go and see General Grant and I would rather die a thousand deaths."
Lee sent a note over to Grant on the morning of April 9 asking for a meeting. Grant responded that he had received Lee’s note at 11:50 a.m. and that “I am at this writing about four miles west of Walker's Church, and will push forward to the front for the purpose of meeting you.” Grant invited Lee to select the meeting place and send notice of it to him.
Lee’s representative rode into the village of Appomattox. Finding several houses too dilapidated for a meeting, he finally selected the home of Wilbur McLean. The choice was an irony of the war. McLean had owned a farm in Manassas where on July 21, 1861 it became a major point of fighting in the first Battle of Bull Run. That McLean house became the headquarters of Confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard. As he was preparing a bucket of stew for the General’s lunch, a Union cannon shot came down his chimney and exploded in the bucket. That was all the warning McLean needed to move his family out of the war zone. In time he found and purchased a farm in the peaceful central Virginia village of Appomattox where the war caught up with him. McLean later commented that the war had begun in his front yard and ended in his parlor.
Lee arrived first at the McLean house and McLean seated him in the parlor. The Confederate Commander was dressed in a magnificent uniform, complete with sash and dress sword, a felt hat, new boots, and fine leather gauntlets. Grant arrived shortly afterward and had his aides wait on the lawn as he went in alone to meet Lee. Grant was dressed as he had arrived from the battlefield. He wore the uniform of a private except for the epaulets showing his three-star rank. His boots and lower uniform were muddy. He wore no sword.
The two men were a study in contrasts. Lee, 58 years old, was erect, six feet in height, with a gray beard and gray hair slightly thinning in front. Grant was 43 years old, four inches shorter, stooped, and his beard and hair were brown without a trace of gray.
Grant signaled his men in, all of whom entered quietly as if surrounding a death-bed. Grant broke the silence with a recollection that he and Lee had met during the Mexican war when Lee was a captain and Grant a lieutenant. Grant said he would have been able to recognize Lee even after all of these years. Lee recalled that they had met but confessed that he couldn’t remember Grant’s features.
Turning to the purpose that had brought them there, Grant discussed the provisions of the surrender. Lee asked if he would commit the terms to writing, which Grant did in his own hand. Generously, Grant said that officers should retain their side arms, rather than be forced the indignity of surrendering them, and they should keep their horses. Lee commented that Confederate cavalrymen and artillerymen provided their own horses, and asked that they be allowed to keep them. Grant agreed.
A little before 4 p.m. it was all over. Lee rose, shook hands with Grant, and bowed slightly to the other Union officers that lined the walls. Then he and the single aide that had accompanied Lee into the McLean house descended the stairs where Lee waited until his horse, Traveller (British spelling) was brought over to him. Lee was apparently unaware that all of the Union officers lounging on the McLean lawn had stood in respect as Lee descended the stairs. Once mounted on Traveller, Grant, who was then standing on the porch raised his hat in salute to Lee, as did all of the Union officers surrounding the house. Lee acknowledged their salute by raising his hat and then rode off to meet his army. For a moment, Grant’s officers began cheering in celebration of the moment, but they were immediately ordered to stop. "The Confederates are now our countrymen, and we do not want to exult over their downfall," Grant said.
On the evening of the 9th, Lee sat in front of his tent before a fire with his aides and generals, talking about the army, the events of the day, and his feelings for the men who had fought for him during the war years. Lee directed Colonel Marshall, the aide who had accompanied him into the McLean parlor, to write out a farewell address with ideas Lee had expressed that night. Marshall wrote a draft in pencil, which Lee read on the 10th, making two changes, and then it was given to a clerk to write in ink. Many other copies were made, all of which Lee signed personally.
Headquarters, Army of Northern Virginia, 10th April 1865.
After four years of arduous service marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources.
I need not tell the survivors of so many hard fought battles, who have remained steadfast to the last, that I have consented to the result from no distrust of them.
But feeling that valor and devotion could accomplish nothing that could compensate for the loss that must have attended the continuance of the contest, I have determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen.
By the terms of the agreement, officers and men can return to their homes and remain until exchanged. You will take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed, and I earnestly pray that a merciful God will extend to you his blessing and protection.
With an unceasing admiration of your constancy and devotion to your Country, and a grateful remembrance of your kind and generous consideration for myself, I bid you an affectionate farewell.
R. E. Lee, General, General Order No. 9
Unlike most of his soldiers, Lee had no home to return to. When Lee decided to fight on the southern side, the Union government had seized the Arlington House, located across the Potomac River on the Virginia heights overlooking Washington City. Lee and his wife, Mary Anna (Custis) Lee, a great grand-daughter of Martha Washington, had lived in Arlington House throughout Lee’s military career in the US Army before the Civil War.
During the war, most of the dead on both sides were buried in cemeteries near the battlefield where they had died. But Union Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs was charged with the responsibility for soldiers who died in and around Washington and Alexandria City. Meigs was a Georgian who had served under Lee in the US Army and he hated his fellow southerners for fighting against the Union. Out of spite more than necessity, Meigs took control of Arlington House and ordered that graves be dug just outside of the mansion front door to prevent the Lees from ever returning and living in their ancestral home. He personally supervised the burial of 26 soldiers in Mary Anna Lee’s rose garden, including his own son, who was killed in October 1864. Thus began the Arlington National Cemetery.
Penniless and propertyless, the Lees traveled to Richmond and lived there for several months in a rented house. In June 1865, Robert E. Lee was indicted for treason. Grant threatened to resign as General of the Army, and while President Andrew Johnson refused to restore Lee’s citizenship, he suspended prosecution.
In late summer of 1865 Lee was offered the presidency of Washington College (now Washington & Lee) in Lexington, Virginia with a home and salary that would provide his family an income. Under his direction and because of his personal prestige, the student body and faculty grew.
Traveller, Lee’s horse throughout the war, accompanied him to Washington College and lived in a stable that was joined to the President’s House. The horse had become so famous that veterans and students plucked hairs from his tail to keep as souvenirs. Lee wrote his daughter Mildred that Traveller was losing so many tail hairs that “he is presenting the appearance of a plucked chicken."
On October 2, 1865, the same day that Lee was inaugurated as president of Washington College, Lee signed an amnesty oath, complying fully with the provision of the Johnson administration to restore citizenship to those who had rebelled against the Union. However, Lee’s citizenship was not restored, and for 110 years following the surrender at Appomattox, Lee remained a man without a country. Quite likely, someone in the State Department was determined that Lee would not regain citizenship as long as he was alive. Only in 1975, after a five year campaign to posthumously restore Lee’s citizenship was it restored in a joint resolution introduced by Senator Harry F. Byrd, Jr. (I-VA).
On September 28, 1870, Lee suffered a stroke. He died two weeks later, shortly after 9 a.m. on October 12, 1870 in Lexington of complications from pneumonia. He was 63 years old. Traveller was led behind the caisson bearing the General's casket, his saddle and bridle draped with black crepe. Lee was buried in a vault underneath Lee Chapel at Washington and Lee University. Above the vault and behind the Chapel podium is a statue named The Recumbent Lee, which was placed there in 1883. My family and I have seen it, and it evokes emotions that are difficult to describe.
In 1871, not long after Lee's death, Traveller stepped on a nail and developed tetanus. There was no cure, and he was euthanized to relieve his suffering. He was buried on the grounds but later dug up and his skeleton reassembled and put on display. Visitors desecrated his remains, carving their initials on his bones and over time the skeleton began to deteriorate. Finally in 1971, Traveller’s remains were reburied in a wooden box encased in concrete just outside a side entrance to Lee Chapel and only a few feet from the Lee family crypt where his master’s body rests. The stable where he lived his last days, still connected to the Lee House on campus, traditionally stands with its doors left open to this day to allow Traveller’s spirit to wander freely.
Among Southerners, Lee came to be ever more revered after the war as he lived uncomplaining despite the indignities he suffered at the hands of the US federal government. In an address before the Southern Historical Society in Atlanta, Georgia in 1874, Benjamin Harvey Hill, who was a US legislator from Georgia before and after the war, and a Confederate senator during the war, described Lee as:
... a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbor without reproach; a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was a Caesar, without his ambition; Frederick, without his tyranny; Napoleon, without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward.
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