Appomattox and the Civil War on the 150th Anniversary

One hundred fifty years ago today under a budding apple tree on the banks of the Appomattox River in central Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee received a letter from US Army General Ulysses S. Grant. The correspondence between the two men had started earlier in the day, and would lead to the end of one of the most profound catastrophes in American (and indeed, human) history — the end of the American Civil War, the bloodiest conflict in our history.

More than 3% of the American population died during the war between the states. The Unites States was a much less populated country in those days, but it was still a big number. Think of it this way: if 3% of Americans died today, it would amount to about nine million people. By April 9th 1865, there were few left untouched by this cataclysmic tragedy in some way. Four years earlier when southern forces fired their artillery at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina nobody thought a civil war would last four years. Consumed with patriotic fervor, young men (and even a handful of women dressed like them) enlisted in the northern and southern militaries to fight for what they believed in. Their first major clash at Manassas, Virginia resulted in a southern victory but both sides experienced shocking death and destruction of equipment and horses. It quickly became clear that the war would be a long, devastating fight that would consume untold resources.

Four years of horrific bloodshed was now about to end near Lee’s apple tree. Earlier in the morning, he realized his Army of Northern Virginia, tired and hungry from nine months of enduring a vicious siege at Petersburg and battered from a 100-mile last-ditch westward breakout, was no longer able to fight for the southern cause. He’d written a note to Grant suggesting the two meet to discuss terms of surrender. In his response, Grant was cordial and polite, recommending that they meet at a site of Lee’s choosing somewhere in between their lines. Lee directed his Aide-de-Camp, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Marshall to find such a place. Marshall and a young private named Joshua O. Johns joined northern officers Lieutenant Colonel Orville E. Babcock and Captain William McKee Dunn and rode their horses to the small hamlet of Appomattox Courthouse, meeting up with a local resident named Wilmer McLean.

McLean originally lived with his family at Manassas, Virginia but after suffering damage during the first battle of the war, they relocated to Appomattox, thinking it would be far enough away to be safe from violence. He took the officers to a vacant structure nearby, but all agreed it would not be suitable. Absent any ideas of another place, McLean offered his own home for Lee and Grant to discuss the surrender. Wilmer McLean, who left northern Virginia to get away from war, was now in the thick of it again — the massive juggernaut was about to end, with terms discussed right in his living room.

Around 1pm that afternoon, General Robert E. Lee, resplendent in a sharp new gray uniform and displaying an officer’s sash and sword, dismounted his horse, Traveller, in front of Wilmer McLean’s home. He walked inside and took a seat in the parlor. Within thirty minutes, horses arrived outside on the stage road. Lee stood as General Ulysses S. Grant entered. In sharp contrast to Lee, Grant’s uniform was flecked with mud from his 30+ mile ride to meet up with the southern gentleman. He was never known for his elegance of dress and Colonel Amos Webster, a member of Grant’s staff, later remarked that he thought his general “looked like a fly on a shoulder of beef.”

Grant removed his riding gloves and shook hands with General Lee. The two men had crossed paths before during the Mexican War in the 1840s. At the time Grant was a new lieutenant, and Lee a major. Grant reminisced at how Lee had admonished him for his sloppy appearance, and in twenty years, it was evident that not much had changed. He made small talk with the Virginian about the old days when they were in the same Army, but Lee only casually remembered him. The generals sat at a small table as the two men’s staffs filed into the room, their spurs and boots rough and clanging across the hardwood floor. Lee brought them back to matters at hand. As the two discussed the terms, Lee asked that they be put in writing. Grant called for his order book and drew up the surrender agreement.

To Lee’s astonishment, Grant was extremely cordial and outlined generous terms. He knew that President Lincoln’s goal was to preserve the integrity of the United States, and doing that meant leniency on the rebellious south. It started with him. Officers would be allowed to keep their sidearms, and Lee’s men would be granted permission to keep their horses (which most owned), since they’d be necessary to go back to a productive agricultural lifestyle. The message was that everyone should lay down their arms and go home so the healing and rebuilding could begin.

Robert E. Lee was sullen, but he was also grateful. The two men shook hands and parted. The fighting was over. There were feelings of sadness on the southern side and cheers of victory on the northern, but the Armies both exuded profound respect for each other. Officers met with many of their old West Point classmates and reminisced about better times before the war. Amongst many, at least for the moment, it seemed much of the animosity, divisiveness, and anger was gone.

It wasn’t the end, of course. Confederate President Jefferson Davis was on the run, and people like former southern General Nathan Bedford Forrest (a founding memeber of the Ku Klux Klan) were drawing up plans to take revenge on the north. President Lincoln was killed on April 14th, fighting continued in North Carolina until southern General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered on April 26th, and the last shot wasn’t fired until General Stand Watie surrendered his southern forces on June 23rd in present-day Oklahoma. Fortunately, no southern efforts to exact revenge or start a guerrilla war after April 1865 gained traction, largely because of the south’s respect for Robert E. Lee, who implored citizens to assimilate and avoid further violence.

The Civil War was an incredible turning point in our history and even today its causes are debated. It’s hard to argue though, that slavery wasn’t the central issue. While there are those that offer that federal suppression of “states’ rights” were the primary culprit, most of those rights surrounded the maintaining of the institution of slavery.

With all that said, the war wasn’t fought primarily by those with a stake in pro-slavery, or even anti-slavery sentiments. Instead it was fought mainly by young men in their late teens through their late twenties, most of whom had little to do with the ownership of fellow humans. Those on the southern side would often say they were fighting to protect their families and homes from an invasion. Those in the north might have been more motivated by a patriotic desire to maintain the union, in line with the ideals of our founding fathers.

Like its causes, the symbols of the Civil War also remain controversial into the twenty-first century. The Confederate battle flag is still a symbol of oppression to some, yet generates strong desires to protect familial and national heritage in others. In 2011, a Pew Research study found that 44% of Americans viewed the flag as a symbol of racism, yet it for years it remained in place as a part of state flags in the south. Today, Mississippi is the only one left. In 2000, the state of South Carolina faced a legal challenge to their flying of the Confederate flag atop their state house dome, and it was taken down soon after.

Lee’s surrender at Appomattox marked the real end of the Civil War, and ended up being the first in the southern line of dominoes to fall. It laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s and we still feel its effects today. It elicits strong emotions in both the north and south, but stands as proof that our Constitution, while an imperfect document, is one of the strongest and most meaningful ever produced by human beings.