General Robert E. Lee Surrenders To General Grant
Appomattox.
To many Americans the word Appomattox is synonymous with the end of the Civil War.
The war, however, did not officially conclude at that tiny village west of Petersburg, Virginia. But what happened there in early April 150 years ago certainly marked the beginning of the end for the Confederacy.
After the fall of Richmond, the Confederate capital, on April 2, 1865, officials in the Confederate government, including President Jefferson Davis, fled. The dominoes began to fall. The surrender at Appomattox took place a week later on April 9.
While it was the most significant surrender to take place during the Civil War, Gen. Robert E. Lee, the Confederacy's most respected commander, surrendered only his Army of Northern Virginia to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.
Several other Confederate forces—some large units, some small&madsh;had yet to surrender before President Andrew Johnson could declare that the Civil War was officially over.
The Grant-Lee agreement served not only as a signal that the South had lost the war but also as a model for the rest of the surrenders that followed.
After Richmond fell and Davis fled, Confederate commanders were on their own to surrender their commands to Union forces. Surrenders, paroles, and amnesty for many Confederate combatants would take place over the next several months and into 1866 throughout the South and border states.
Not until 16 months after Appomattox, on August 20, 1866, did the President formally declare an end to the war.
Lee's Last Campaign: Starved for Supplies
The string of events marking the end of the war all began with Lee’s Appomattox campaign.
General Lee's final campaign began March 25, 1865, with a Confederate attack on Fort Stedman, near Petersburg. General Grant’s forces counterattacked a week later on April 1 at Five Forks, forcing Lee to abandon Richmond and Petersburg the following day. The Confederate Army’s retreat moved southwest along the Richmond & Danville Railroad. Lee desperately sought a train loaded with supplies for his troops but encountered none.
Grant, realizing that Lee's army was running out of options, sent a letter to Lee on April 7 requesting the Confederate general's surrender.
"The result of last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in this struggle," Grant wrote. "I feel that it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself 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."
Lee responded, saying he did not agree with Grant's opinion of the hopelessness of further resistance of his army. However, he did ask what terms Grant was offering. This correspondence would continue throughout the following day.
Meanwhile, Union Gen. Philip Sheridan's cavalry, along with two rapidly moving infantry corps, marched hard from Farmville, in central Virginia, along a more southerly route than Confederate forces. Union cavalry reached Appomattox Station before Lee and blocked his path on April 8.
The next morning, Lee faced Union cavalry and infantry in his front at Appomattox Court House and two Union corps to his rear three miles to the northeast at New Hope Church. At dawn, Confederate Gen. John B. Gordon's corps attacked Federal cavalry, but Gordon quickly realized he could not push forward without substantial help from other Confederate forces.
Lee, upon learning of this news and realizing his retreat had been halted, asked Grant for a meeting to discuss his army's surrender. He later asked for "a suspension of hostilities" pending the outcome of the surrender talks.
Grant received Lee's request four miles west of Walker's Church, about six miles from Appomattox Court House. One of Grant's aides, Lt. Col. Orville Babcock, and his orderly, Capt. William McKee Dunn, brought Grant's reply to Lee. The meeting place was left to Lee's discretion. Lee and two of his aides rode toward Appomattox Court House, accompanied by Babcock and Dunn. Soon Lee sent the aides ahead to find a suitable location for the surrender.
Lee's Men Get to Keep Horses: Rations Go to Confederate Soldiers
Soon after entering the village, the two Confederates happened upon a homeowner, Wilmer McLean, who showed them an unfurnished and somewhat run-down house. After being told that would not do for such an important occasion, he offered his own house for the surrender meeting. After seeing the house, they accepted and sent a message back to Lee.
Lee reached the McLean house around 1 p.m. Along with his aide-de-camp Lt. Col. Charles Marshall and Babcock, he awaited Grant's arrival in McLean’s parlor, the first room off the center hallway to the left. Grant arrived around 1:30. His personal staff and Generals Phil Sheridan and Edward Ord were with him. Grant and Lee discussed the old army and having met during the Mexican War.
Grant proposed that the Confederates, with the exception of officers, lay down their arms, and after signing paroles, return to their homes. Lee agreed with the terms, and Grant began writing them out.
One issue that Lee brought up before the terms were finalized and signed was the issue of horses. He pointed out that unlike the Federals, Confederate cavalrymen and artillerymen in his army owned their own horses. Grant stated that he would not add it to the agreement but would instruct his officers receiving the paroles to let the men take their animals home. Lee also brought up the subject of rations since his men had gone without rations for several days. Grant agreed to supply 25,000 rations to the hungry Confederate soldiers. Most of the rations were provided from Confederate supplies captured by Sheridan when he seized rebel supply trains at Appomattox Station the previous day.
Lee and Grant designated three officers each to make sure the terms of the surrender were properly carried out.
Grant and Lee met on horseback around 10 in the morning of April 10 on the eastern edge of town. There are conflicting accounts to what they discussed, but it is believed that three things came out of this meeting: each Confederate soldier would be given a printed pass, signed by his officers, to prove he was a paroled prisoner; all cavalrymen and artillerymen would be allowed to retain their horses; and Confederates who had to pass through Federal-occupied territory to get home were allowed free transportation on U.S. government railroads and vessels.
Printing presses were set up to print the paroles, and the formal surrender of arms took place on April 12. For those who stayed with Lee until the end, the war was over. It was time for them to head home. Lee left Appomattox and rode to Richmond to join his wife.
Lee's Wife Asserts that the General Did Not Surrender the Confederacy
In a statement about her husband, Mary Custis Lee remarked that "General Lee is not the Confederacy."
Her assessment was spot on, for the Confederacy still lived. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army—the next largest after Lee's still at war—was operating in North Carolina. Lt. Gen. Richard Taylor controlled forces in Alabama, Mississippi, and part of Louisiana. Lt. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith's men were west of the Mississippi, and Brig. Gen. Stand Watie was in command of an Indian unit in the Far West. Nathan Bedford Forrest had men in Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi.
The day after Lee's surrender, the federal War Department was still trying to work out who was included in the terms of the agreement; its terms had not yet been received in Washington. Was it all members of the Army of Northern Virginia or just those who were with Lee at the time of surrender?
Maj. Gen. Godfrey Weitzel, the Union commander in charge of Richmond, telegraphed Grant that "the people here are anxious that [John] Mosby should be included in Lee's surrender. They say he belongs to that army." The unit they were referring to was Mosby's Rangers, also known as the 43rd Battalion of Virginia Cavalry, who harassed Union forces in Virginia for the last few years of the war.
In addition, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton requested from Grant further clarification about forces in Loudoun County, Virginia, that belonged to the Army of Northern Virginia and whether they fell under Lee's surrender. Grant clarified the matter in a telegram to Stanton on the night of April 10:
The surrender was only of the men left with the pursued army at the time of surrender. All prisoners captured in battle previous to the surrender stand same as other prisoners of war, and those who had escaped and were detached at the time are not included. I think, however, there will be no difficulty now in bringing in on the terms voluntarily given to General Lee all the fragments of the Army of Northern Virginia, and it may be the army under Johnston also. I wish Hancock would try it with Mosby.
This matched a telegram sent mid-afternoon from Chief of Staff Gen. Henry W. Halleck to Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock in which the chief of staff advised the general that the secretary of war wanted him to print and circulate the correspondence between Grant and Lee concerning the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. Halleck then provided further guidance that "All detachments and stragglers from that army will, upon complying with the conditions agreed upon, be paroled and permitted to return to their homes."
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