officer and man
allowed return to their homes
not to be disturbed

APPOMATTOX C. H., VA.,

Ap 9th, 1865.

GEN. R. E. LEE,
Comd’g C. S. A.

GEN: In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of the 8th inst., I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of N. Va. on the following terms, to wit: Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate.

One copy to be given to an officer 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 officer 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 their homes, not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside.

Very respectfully,

U. S. GRANT,
Lt. Gen.

So goes the letter from General US Grant (USA) to General RE LEE (CSA) offering terms of surrender for the Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, 161 years ago today.

About that moment, Bruce Catton wrote:

It was Palm Sunday, and Lee rode to the house of a man named McLean to have a talk with Grant. He wore his best uniform and he had a sword buckled at his side, and there should have been lancers and pennons and trumpets going on before, for he was the last American knight and he had a grandeur about him, and when he rode out of the war something that will never come back rode out of American life with him.

Grant looked at the beaten army and he saw his own fellow Americans, who had made their fight and lost and now wanted to go back and rebuild. But the war had aroused much hatred and bitterness, especially among those who had done no fighting, and Grant knew very well that powerful men in Washington were talking angrily of treason and of traitors, and wanting to draw up proscription lists, so that leading Confederates could be jailed or hanged.

The sentence Grant had written would make that impossible. They could proceed against Robert E. Lee, for instance, only by violating the pledged word of U. S. Grant, who had both the will and the power to see his word kept inviolate. If they could not hang Lee they could hardly hang anybody. There would be no hangings. Grant had ruled them out.

— It did not strike the eye quite as quickly, but U. S. Grant had a certain grandeur about him, too.

Remember when all of us could live in this Country not to be disturbed by United States authority.

Who knew what it would take to make America great.