History of Grant’s Terms of Surrender
Lt. Gen. U. S. Grant’s terms of surrender given to Gen. Robert E. Lee at Appomattox
Court House on April 9, 1865, were a defining point in the Civil War. Negotiations
leading up to the surrender began April 7, with Grant’s communication to Gen. Lee
requesting the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia in order to avoid further
bloodshed, to which Lee replied by asking what terms would be offered. Grant
responded the following day that his one condition would be that the men and officers of
the Army of Northern Virginia would not “take up arms against the Government of the
United States until properly exchanged.”[1] He further requested to meet with Lee, or his
representatives, to arrange definite terms of surrender. Lee agreed to meet—not
necessarily to surrender his army—but to discuss the terms which might lead toward
“restoration of peace.” While Lee requested a meeting on the morning of April 9, Grant
replied that he had “no authority to treat for peace” and graciously declined. Another
dispatch from Lee requested a meeting to discuss the terms for surrender of his army. A
short truce was declared by Gen. Meade after reading Lee’s note to Grant. A meeting
was finally arranged.
Lee, accompanied by Col. Charles Marshall, his military secretary, and Col. Babcock of
Grant’s army, was conducted by a resident of Appomattox Court House, Wilmer
McLean, to McLean’s own residence, where he awaited Gen. Grant. Grant entered while
some of his staff—Generals Sheridan and Ord—remained outside until Grant had a brief
conversation with Lee. The two generals discussed the terms by which Grant would
receive the surrender of Lee’s army: “officers and men surrendered to be paroled and
disqualified from taking up arms again until properly exchanged, and all, arms,
ammunition, and supplies to be delivered up as captured property.” Lee agreed and asked
Grant to write the terms so that they could be acted upon. Grant called for his order book
and began to write down his terms.
“The leaves had been so prepared that three impressions of the writing were made. He
wrote very rapidly, and did not pause until he had finished the sentence ending with
‘officers appointed by me to receive them.’ Then he looked toward Lee, and his eyes
seemed to be resting on the handsome sword that hung at that officer’s side. He said
afterward that this set him to thinking that it would be an unnecessary humiliation to
required the officers to surrender their swords, and a great hardship to deprive them of
their personal baggage and horses, and after a short pause he wrote the sentence: ‘This
will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage.’
When he had finished the latter he called Colonel (afterward General) Ely S. Parker, one
of the military secretaries on the staff, to his side and looked it over with him and directed
him as they went along to interline six or seven words and to strike out the word ‘their,’
which had been repeated. When this had been done, he handed the book to General Lee
and asked him to read over the letter.”[2]
When Lee read the two-page draft, he noted that the word “exchanged” had been omitted
on the second page, and with Grant’s permission, marked in pencil where it should be
inserted. Grant then directed Colonel T. S. Bowers of his staff to make a copy of the
draft in ink. Bowers turned the responsibility over to Colonel Parker, whose handwriting
was considered the best on the staff. Finding no source of ink in McLean’s house,
Colonel Charles Marshall furnished his own inkstand for Parker’s use, prompting Colonel
Horace Porter to comment that , “we had to fall back upon the resources of the enemy. .
..”[3]
Meanwhile, Lee instructed Colonel Marshall to draft a letter of acceptance of the terms of
surrender, and after perusing it, Lee asked him to make a final copy in ink. The paper for
the document was provided by Grant’s staff. While Marshall and Parker copied the
letters, General Grant introduced his staff and general officers to Lee. Colonel Horace
Porter’s account of the surrender indicated that Lee showed little expression until he
showed surprise when introduced to Colonel Parker. “Parker was a full-blooded Indian,
and the reigning Chief of the Six Nations [of Iroquois]. . . .the natural surmise was that he
[Lee] at first mistook Parker for a Negro. . .”[4] That Porter was incorrect in this
statement is proved by Colonel Ely Parker’s own account, in which Lee said to him, “I
am glad to see one real American here” to which Parker replied after shaking Lee’s hand,
“We are all Americans.”[5] After Parker completed his copy of the terms, he “brought it
to General Grant, who signed it, sealed it and then handed it to General Lee.”[6] After
further discussion, Lee and Marshall left McLean’s house and returned to their
headquarters with the documents.
Thirty-two years later, in a letter to Major George W. Davis dated 18 May 1897, Charles
Marshall wrote that he had “seen among my papers, the original or a copy of the letter
from General Grant. . .I am sure, if I ever had the paper, as I think I had, I did not give it
to Col. Burton N. Harrison.. . . [General Grant] directed Col. Parker to make a copy in ink
of his letter to Gen. Lee.. . . There was no ink in the room, but I had a small box wood
ink-stand in my pocket and I think also a steel pen in a small satchel which I generally
carried. I gave Col. Parker the inkstand (and I think the pen) with which he proceeded to
copy Gen. Grant’s letter in ink from the tissue paper copy. . . . Col. Parker then took the
ink copy of Gen. Grant’s letter to Gen. Grant, who had remained sitting in the same place
as when he wrote the pencil copy. . . the latter signed the ink copy of his letter to Gen.
Lee. . . Col. Parker then handed to me the letter of Gen. Grant which the latter had signed.
. . I will make a careful search for the original of Gen. Grant’s letter, and if I find it, will
with the consent of Gen. Custis Lee, furnish it to you for the use of your office.”[7]
The Rest of the Story….
On October 12, 1955, the 85th anniversary of Robert E. Lee’s death, Charles A. Marshall,
son of Col. Charles Marshall, presented two documents to Stratford at a ceremony on the
Great House lawn: Grant’s Terms of Surrender and Lee’s Farewell to his Troops
[General Order No. 9]. Marshall, a Baltimore lawyer and the youngest son of Col.
Marshall, had been custodian of his father’s war papers. According to an account of a
conversation after the ceremony, Marshall said that his father had asked Lee, “ ‘To whom
shall I turn over these documents?’ To which Lee had replied, ‘There is no Confederate
government anymore, so just keep them.’ The papers had been in the possession of the
Marshall family since the surrender.”[8] Sir Frederick Barton Maurice used the
document as a resource in his book on Marshall’s years with Lee, An Aide-de-Camp of
Lee. . ., published in 1927. Maurice was instrumental in convincing Marshall’s son and
namesake to place his important documents “in some appropriate place, other than his
home, where they might be preserved for posterity. Mr. Marshall stated that he felt
‘Stratford’ was the proper place.”[9] Charles Marshall was already familiar with
Stratford since his sister-in-law Isabel Couper Marshall, wife of H. Snowden Marshall
(Charles Marshall’s older brother) of Georgia, had been an active member of Stratford’s
Board of Directors from 1931 until her death in 1936.
Grant’s “terms of surrender” document has at various times been on temporary display
since its arrival at Stratford. It was loaned to the Virginia Historical Society for its Lee
and Grant exhibition that opened in October 2007 in conjunction with the bicentennial of
Lee’s birth. From there the exhibit traveled to the Missouri Historical Society in St.
Louis, then New York Historical Society, and closed at the Museum of Southern History
in Houston in September 2009. While on exhibit, the document was alternated with an
excellent facsimile to reduce the amount of its exposure to light. This important
document—one that positively impacted America’s ability to heal her war wounds—
currently awaits much-needed conservation treatment to help preserve it for posterity.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------[1] U. S. Grant to R. E. Lee, 8 April 1865
[2] “The Surrender at Appomattox Court House” by Horace Porter, Brevet Brigadier
General, U.S.A. http://www.civilwarhome.com/surrender.htm
[3] Horace Porter, p.10
[4] Horace Porter, p. 10
[5] Lt. Col. Ely S. Parker, http://www.nps.gov/apco/parker,htm
[6] Lt. Col. Ely S. Parker
[7] Col. Charles A. Marshall to Maj. George W. Davis dated Baltimore, MD 18 May
1897 [transcript of letter in duPont Library files]
[8] The Westmoreland News, October 21, 1955, “Lee Surrender Papers Now At Historic
Stratford”
[9] Westmoreland News, Oct. 21, 1955