The meeting took place at the home of Wilmer McLean, the former owner of the apartment that had served as the headquarters of Confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard during the First Battle of Manassas. After this house was damaged during the battle, McLean then moved his family to the Appomattox courthouse, in Alexander`s words, “a remote place where he could hope never to see a soldier”: “It was certainly a very remarkable coincidence. The first enemy shot I ever saw went through his kitchen. The last shot was fired at his country and the surrender took place in his living room; nearly four years of time and 200 miles of space in between. Among the events that took place in McLean`s living room, Grant reported that he and Lee had a pleasant conversation, from which Lee remembered his attention to the issue in question, the proposed conditions for surrendering. Grant requested written documents and drafted the following terms, which were personally addressed to Lee: In accordance with the contents of my letter dated the 8th Inst. I propose the surrender of N. Va`s army. under the following conditions, namely: the roles of all officers and crews must be duplicated.
One copy will be given to an official designated by me, the other will be kept by the official(s) designated by you. Officers give their individual probations so as not to resort to weapons against the U.S. government until they have been properly exchanged, and each company or regiment commander signs similar probation for the men of their commandos. Weapons, artillery and public property should be parked, stacked and handed over to the officer I have appointed to receive. This will not include officers` handguns, their private horses or luggage. To this end, each officer and man will be allowed to return home so as not to be disturbed by the authority of the United States, provided that they comply with their probations and the applicable laws in which they may reside. After the minor battles of Cumberland Church and High Bridge, General Grant sent on 7 July. In April, he wrote a note to Lee suggesting it was time to abandon the Army of Northern Virginia. In a response, Lee refused the request, but asked Grant what conditions he had in mind. [6] On April 8, Union cavalry under Brigadier General and Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer captured and burned three supply trains waiting for Lee`s army at Appomattox Station. Now the two federal troops, the Army of the Potomac and James` Army, converge on Appomattox.
[Citation needed] Lee reached McLean House about 13.m. With his warrant officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Marshall and Babcock, he waited for Grant`s arrival at McLean`s living room, the first room next to the middle corridor on the left. Grant arrived around 1:30 a.m. from the .m. His personal staff and Generals Phil Sheridan and Edward Ord were with him. Grant and Lee discussed the old army and after meeting during the Mexican War. Battle of Appomattox Court House, (April 9, 1865), one of the last battles of the American Civil War. After a week-long flight west of Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee briefly attacked Union General Ulysses S.
Grant before going to the Union Appomattox Courthouse. This marked the beginning of the end of the protracted civil war. The surrender at Appomattox Court House took place in April 1865, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee submitted to Union General Leader Ulysses S. Grant, almost ending the American Civil War (1861-1865). After the fall of Richmond on 2 and 3 April, Lee and his army of Northern Virginia had retreated west to the village of Appomattox Court House when the James` well-positioned army defeated them on 9 April. April forced to raise a white flag. Within hours, grant enthusiastically welcomed his opponent into the living room of a house of Wilmer McLean, who had fled his home near the fighting during the First Battle of Manassas four years earlier, to enjoy the relative tranquility of appomattox`s landscape. Now Lee, in an impeccable uniform, accepted generous terms from Grant, dressed more informally, who pardoned the Confederate soldiers and allowed the officers to keep their weapons aside and their horses.
Lee then issued his famous farewell orders, praised the courage of his men, and blamed the Union`s superior resources for their defeat. These documents, combined with stories by Confederate General John B. Gordon and Union General Joshua Chamberlain about generous union tributes to the official capitulation of September 12. April, formed a narrative of reconciliation that remained influential until the twenty-first century. In general, however, African Americans who fought against white supremacy in the South after emancipation were excluded from this narrative. Grant`s response was remarkable in that it let the defeated Lee choose the place of his surrender. [13] Lee received the response within an hour and sent an assistant, Charles Marshall, to find a suitable location for the occasion. Marshall examined the Appomattox Courthouse, a small village of about twenty buildings that served as a stopover for travelers on Richmond-Lynchburg Stage Road. Marshall rejected the first house, which he considered too dilapidated, and instead moved into Wilmer McLean`s brick house in 1848.[14] McLean had lived near Manassas Junction during the First Battle of Bull Run and had retired to Appomattox to escape the war.
[15] “It would be useless and therefore cruel,” Remarked Robert E. Lee on the morning of April 9, 1865: “To cause further bruising, I met with General Grant to surrender.” 1 The two generals met shortly after noon on April 9, 1865, at Wilmer McLean`s home in the village of Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Lee`s surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant, commander-in-chief of all U.S. forces, accelerated the end of the American Civil War. On April 10, Lee delivered his farewell speech to his army. [23] On the same day, a six-member commission met to discuss an official surrender ceremony, although no Confederate officer wanted to organize such an event. Brigadier General (Brevet de Major General) Joshua L.
Chamberlain was the union officer chosen to lead the ceremony. In his memoir, The Passing of the Armies, Chamberlain reflects on what he experienced on April 12, 1865, when the Army of Northern Virginia invaded to give up its weapons and colors: the war, however, did not officially end in this small village west of Petersburg, Virginia. But what happened there in early April 150 years ago certainly marked the beginning of the end of Confederation. Lee`s first goal was to gather and care for his men at the Amelia Courthouse. His plan was to join General Joseph E.`s Army of Tennessee. Johnston in North Carolina and went on the offensive after building defenses on the Roanoke River in southwestern Virginia. However, when the troops arrived in Amelia on April 4, they found no supplies. Lee sent wagons to the surrounding country to look for food, but lost a day`s walk. [3] The army then moved west to Appomattox station, where another supply train was waiting for it. Lee`s army now consisted of the cavalry corps and two small infantry corps. [Citation needed] As memorialists on both sides of the Civil War would later recount, Confederate forces actually occupied a hill that included an apple tree on April 9, 1865.
Grant recounted in his memoirs how a dirt road went up the slope diagonally and how so many rebellious supply trucks had dragged that their wheels cut through the protruding roots of an apple tree and created a makeshift embankment along the supply road. It was on this dam, Grant was told, that his Confederate counterpart was sitting with his back to an apple tree when he finally decided the time had come to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia. The Battle of Appomattox Court House began in the early hours of April 9, 1865. On the afternoon of the same day, General Robert E. Lee, commander of all Confederate forces, handed over his Army of Northern Virginia to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant. Grant`s joint operations by the Federal Army of the Potomac, the James Army, and Grant`s Army of the Shenandoah had pushed Lee`s forces into a corner. References Chamberlain, J. L. (1993). The Passage of armies: An account of the last campaign of the Army of the Potomac, based on personal memories of the fifty army corps.
New York, NY: Bantam. Gallagher, Gary W. 2000 “There is resentment in our hearts. What you dream of by little.” Civil War Times Illustrated 39 (2): 52. . .