04/10/2026
Good morning, Museum fans. Today's history story takes us back in time.
It was 150 years ago today, in 1865, that General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the American Civil War. Union troops had driven Lee out of Richmond and blocked his route back to North Carolina. Lee’s Confederate troops had no more food or supplies, and Union forces hounded them wherever they went. Men were deserting in growing numbers, and those who stayed seemed certainly doomed. “It would be useless and therefore cruel, to provoke the further effusion of blood,” the Confederate general said, “and I have arranged to meet with General Grant with a view to surrender.”
The meeting took place in the parlor of Wilmer McLean’s house in Appomattox Court House, Virginia, and it lasted about two and a half hours. Lee was the first to arrive at one p.m., and was arrayed in full dress uniform, spotless. Grant came in half an hour later, straight from the road: rumpled and mud-speckled, with no ornamentation to give away his rank. Lee asked for the terms of the surrender in writing, which Grant did quickly. He agreed to release all Confederate soldiers currently held prisoner by the Union, with the condition that they never again take up arms against the United States. He also agreed that all the troops could keep their personal property — including their horses, which many of them would need for spring planting back home. Grant also agreed to supply Lee’s men with Union rations. The meeting concluded at about four o’clock and — for all intents and purposes — so did the war, which had cost some 630,000 American lives. There were further surrenders of other field armies over the next few months, but Lee’s surrender marked the death knell of the Confederate cause.
Grant, upon overhearing some Union soldiers celebrating, put a stop to the festivities, saying, “The war is over; the Rebels are our countrymen again, and the best sign of rejoicing after the victory will be to abstain from all demonstrations in the field.”
