The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

On this date in 1865 General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia, ending the Civil War.

The Battle of Appomattox took place in the preceding days. As the Union troops tightened the noose around Lee there were several exchanges of notes, with Grant imploring Lee to surrender his army.

Finally on April 9th Lee sent the following simple note to Grant,

General,

I received your note this morning on the picket line, whither I had come to meet you and ascertain definitely what terms were embraced in your proposal of yesterday with reference to your surrender of this army. I now ask an interview in accordance with the offer contained in your letter of yesterday for that purpose.

Jean Edward Smith, in his biography of Grant, tells us what happened next,

Grant was riding towards Sheridan when Lee's first message was delivered. It was then close to noon. Grant dismounted and read the letter, sitting on a grassy knoll by the roadside. Later he wrote that the migraine from which he was suffering disappeared immediately. Grant asked for his dispatch book and dashed off a quick reply. He told Lee where he was and said he would "push forward to the front for the purpose of meeting you." The message was entrusted to Grant's aide Lieutenant Colonel Orville Babcock, who was told to escort Lee to whatever site he chose.

It took Babcock thirty minutes to reach Lee. When he rode up, he found him sitting on a blanket-covered pile of fence rails, talking to Longstreet...

Lee sat up when Babcock dismounted, and then he rose to greet him. After digesting the contents of Grant's note, he sent Marshall ahead to select a suitable meeting place. Then he set out with Babcock alongside and his orderly, Sergeant George Tucker, ahead. At a stream Lee paused to let Traveller drink, and then rode on to the little village of Appomattox Court House,p where Colonel Marshall had found a first-floor parlor room in the house of Wilmer McLean, in the south side of the road to Lynchburg. In a curious quirk of fate, McLean had owned a farm near Manassas in 1861 and a shell had come crashing through one of his windows during the opening skirmish of the war. He promptly sold the farm and moved to Appomattox, a remote hamlet in Southern Virgina, which he assumed was of no military value to either side. The war he fled was now about to end on his doorstep; in fact, in his front room where Lee, Marshall, and Babcock now awaited Grant's arrival.

The terms were drawn up and the documents finalized about 4pm.

Lee rose, shook hands with Grant once more, and went out onto the porch where several Federal officers sprang to their feet and saluted. He put on his hat to return their salutes, walked down the steps and waited for Traveller to be brought up . Lee mounted slowly and with an audible sigh. At that moment Grant came down the steps on his way to where [his horse] Jeff Davis was tethered. Stopping suddenly, he removed his hat in salute, as did the officers with him. Silently, Lee raised his own hat in return, and passed out through the gate and down the road.