Ulysses S. Grant: The ‘Unconditional Surrender Continues

The final document came to two pages of scrawled talking points. Grant reviewed what he had written, then passed it over to Lee for his perusal. The Southerner read silently until he came to the last two sentences. Then he looked up, visibly relieved, and complimented Grant, saying, “This will have a very happy effect upon my army.” The only substantive change Lee asked for was that not just officers but men also be allowed to keep their horses, explaining that Southern soldiers brought their own animals when they joined the army. Grant refused to alter the wording of the surrender draft, but said he would issue instructions to provost marshals to permit paroled Southerners to take their horses and mules with them. This concession likewise pleased Lee, who remarked: “This will have the best possible effect upon the men. It will be very gratifying, and will do much toward conciliating our people.”

With the last details worked out, Grant passed the order book over to Ely S. Parker, his military secretary, to draw up an official copy of the agreement. Even as Parker was transcribing an official copy, Grant continued to make concessions. When Lee commented that his commissary provisions had not kept up with the army, Grant promised to send over 25,000 rations.

Some two hours after Grant had walked through the door into Wilmer McLean’s parlor, the surrender was done. Despite Lee’s presence, the entire thing from start to finish had been pure Grant. Charles Marshall, Lee’s aide, called it “the simplest, plainest, and most thoroughly devoid of any attempt at effect that you can imagine.” The two commanders stood and solemnly shook hands one more time, then walked out to their horses. The final act was anticlimactic but revealing of the high regard Grant held Lee in, as opposed to either Buckner or Pemberton: After Lee mounted his horse, and just before he turned to ride out of the yard, Grant lifted his hat in informal salute, and his officers quickly followed suit. Without hesitation, Lee returned the gesture.

Back at his headquarters, when Grant heard the bluecoats begin to cheer and fire off their guns, he issued orders to his officers to stop such celebrating immediately. “The war is over,” he said; “the Rebels are our countrymen again.” A little later, he sat down on a large rock and composed a simple telegram to the War Department notifying them what had transpired. As at Donelson and Vicksburg, he refrained from tooting his own horn except to note that the surrender was “on terms proposed by myself.”

Grant proved himself a master of the art of surrender by developing certain distinctive techniques in his approach to negotiation. First and foremost, he was never vengeful or vindictive. While others wanted a pound of flesh, Grant wanted peace. Compassion and magnanimity were always his watchwords, even when others occasionally took advantage of those traits. Porter Alexander, the reknowned Confederate artillerist, credited Grant with “a great and broad and generous mind.” Second, he knew how to gain the upper hand with his famous pronouncement of “unconditional surrender,” but once he had the upper hand, he showed himself willing to negotiate generous terms within reason. He favored personal, informal negotiations over the use of commissioners to hammer out surrender terms. Having secured his enemy’s capitulation, he eschewed all pomp and circumstance, which meant skipping stylized ceremonies if at all possible. (At Appomattox the surrender ceremony was set up by subordinates.) Yet he insisted on an unequivocal act of surrender that could not be twisted by a defeated enemy later. For example, at Appomattox he would not let Confederates simply drop their rifles and walk away. On every occasion, his simple modesty shone through; none of the men who surrendered to him had any reason to feel bitterness toward Grant personally.