What was lees surrender

At first the conversation was polite, then Lee brought the meeting to the topic at hand - his surrender. Grant put down on paper the modest terms Lincoln had directed him to give: all soldiers and officers were to surrender their arms and return to their respective homes and observe the conditions of their parole and abide by the laws of their individual states.

Lee then asked Grant to permit those soldiers who owned their own horsed and mules to keep them. Grant agreed. Additionally, Lee requested food for his starving army. Within hours the news was being shouted in the streets in Washington, D. Samuel Coleman, where Hannah Reynolds, the only civilian casualty of the fighting in Appomattox lived. Reynolds, an enslaved woman, was mortally wounded a few hours early by a Confederate artillery shell.

Union surgeons treated her wounds, but she died three days later as a free woman, officially emancipated when Lee surrendered. In this "commissioners' meeting," they worked out the details of supplying the Confederates, printing and signing paroles, and the format for the formal surrender of weapons, flags, and other military property.

Under the supervision of Maj. General George Sharpe, around 30, parole passes were printed in the Clover Hill Tavern and 28, paroles were issued to the Confederates between April 10th and April 15th. The next day, April 10th, Grant met briefly with Lee on the eastern edge of the village.

Grant apparently hoped to persuade Lee to influence other Confederate forces to surrender, but Lee refused. Grant left Appomattox to continue the work of ending the war. Lee returned to his headquarters where he attempted to remain isolated, refusing to meet with most of the Union officers who wanted to speak with him.

Also, on April 10th, Lee directed Lt. Lee stayed in Appomattox until April 12th, the day of the formal infantry surrender ceremony and the fourth anniversary of the first shot at Fort Sumter that started the conflict. The war ended for Abraham Lincoln three days later when he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on the evening of April 14th.

With each ending there was a new beginning into an uncertain peace and an even more uncertain movement for freedom and equality for the millions of African Americans who were finally free by law, though local practices ensured continued discrimination and slavery in other forms.

Contemporary historians like Dr. Perhaps more than being an end or a beginning, the surrender at Appomattox should be viewed as an intersection of change. Most events in human history rarely have neat and tidy beginnings and endings, and the surrender at Appomattox is no exception. Box Appomattox , VA Explore This Park. Info Alerts Maps Calendar Reserve. Alerts In Effect Dismiss.

Dismiss View all alerts. The Surrender Meeting. Upon reading that message, Grant sent one to Gen. Lee asking him to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia. The exchange of messages continued, carried by couriers. John B. Gordon broke through, only to discover nearly 30, Union infantry waiting beyond. Lee dressed in a new gray uniform, a red sash around his waist, over which he buckled a sword with ornate scabbard and handle, and had his boots brightly polished.

Unlike Lee, he arrived at the chosen town of Appomattox Court House, a little northeast of Appomattox Station, in a mud-spattered uniform he had worn for days, having left behind the wagon carrying his personal effects. The men met in the first-floor parlor of a house owned by Wilmer McLean, who ironically had moved to this far corner of Virginia to escape the war after a cannon shell crashed into his home near Manassas during the first major battle of the war.

When Grant arrived, he and Lee greeted each other cordially, then Lee returned to the chair where he had been waiting near an unlit fireplace, and Grant chose a chair in the middle of the room. Grant, who later said he found himself rather depressed over the downfall of such a valiant enemy, attempted small talk.