Lee Surrenders at Appomattox: The Civil War Ends

Robert E. Lee rode to the McLean house in Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9, 1865, wearing a crisp gray dress uniform with a jeweled sword at his side. Ulysses Grant arrived mud-splattered in a private's coat with lieutenant general's stars pinned to the shoulders. The contrast in appearance captured something essential about the two men and the two causes they represented. Lee had run out of options. His Army of Northern Virginia, starving and reduced to fewer than 28,000 effective troops, was surrounded after a week-long retreat from Petersburg and Richmond. The surrender terms Grant offered were remarkably generous and reflected Lincoln's desire for reconciliation rather than punishment. Confederate soldiers would be paroled and allowed to go home. Officers could keep their sidearms, horses, and personal baggage. Enlisted men who owned their own horses, as many cavalry and artillery troops did, could keep them for spring planting. Grant also ordered his commissary to send food to Lee's starving troops. When Union soldiers began firing celebratory artillery, Grant ordered them to stop, saying, "The war is over. The rebels are our countrymen again." The meeting lasted approximately 90 minutes. Lee signed the surrender document, shook Grant's hand, and rode back to his lines. As he approached, his soldiers crowded around him, many weeping. Lee told them to go home, plant their crops, and obey the law. His General Order No. 9, issued the following day, praised the "unsurpassing courage and fortitude" of his troops and told them to return to their lives "with the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed." The Appomattox surrender did not technically end the Civil War. Confederate forces remained in the field under Joseph Johnston in North Carolina, Richard Taylor in Alabama, and Kirby Smith in the Trans-Mississippi. But Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was the Confederacy's most formidable fighting force, and its surrender made continued resistance futile. Johnston surrendered to William Sherman on April 26, Taylor on May 4, and Smith on June 2. Five days after Appomattox, Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre, and the generous terms of surrender were endangered by a grief-stricken nation's desire for vengeance.