Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/592

550 On the morning of Sunday, April 9th, just as Lee's advance was making a desperate charge in endeavoring to break through Sheridan's cavalry at Appomattox station, the Fifth and Twenty-fourth corps of Federal infantry advanced and drove back the Confederate charge. At about that time a white flag was sent, from the Confederate lines, "requesting a suspension of hostilities, pending negotiations for a surrender." Lee at this juncture, accepting the inevitable, addressed the following note to Grant:

General: I received your note of 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 the surrender of this army. I now ask an interview in accordance with the offer contained in your letter of yesterday for that purpose. General.

After dispatching this reluctantly written note, General Lee exchanged his war-worn uniform for a new one that he had in his baggage, and rode to Appomattox Court House, where arrangements had been made for the solicited interview between General Grant and himself, at the house of a Mr. McLean, who had removed to this remote place from the battlefield of Manassas, in which he was living in July, 1861, only to have in his new house, four years later, the closing scene of the bloody drama of the great civil war.

The two great commanders soon met, and after a brief but courteous interview, the terms of surrender were agreed to and formulated in the following correspondence:

Appomattox Court House, Va., April 9, 1865.

General: In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of the 8th instant, I propose to receive the surrender of the army of Northern Virginia on the following terms, to wit: Rolls of all officers and men to be made in duplicate, one copy to be given to an officer to be designated by me, the other to be retained by such officer or officers as you may designate; the officers to give their individual paroles not to take up arms against the government of the United States until properly exchanged, and each company or regimental commander sign a like parole for the men of their commands. The arms, artillery, and public property to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the officers appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to his home, not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside. Lieutenant-General.