Thursday is the 150th anniversary of what was arguably the end of the Civil War. It was on April 9, 1865 (Palm Sunday), that Ulysses S. Grant accepted Robert E. Lee’s surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. While other Confederate armies remained in the field (Joe Johnston surrendered the Army of the Tennessee later in April and Kirby Smith surrendered in May), General Lee’s surrender is considered by most to be the end of the war.
Which brings up an Allen family story. When our children were 13 and 11, we travelled to Charlottesville, Virginia, to see Thomas Jefferson’s magnificent University of Virginia. On the way there, we made, at my insistence, what became known as “Dad’s 90-mile detour,” so we could go to Appomattox Court House.
Nelson Mandela is justifiably praised for his spirit of reconciliation and lack of bitterness in post-apartheid South Africa. Similarly, when Vaclav Havel spoke to the crowds on Wenceslas Square in November of 1989 during the Velvet Revolution, he stressed the non-violent and non-retributive nature of their revolution:
“Those who have for many years engage in a violent and bloody vengefulness against their opponents are now afraid of us. They should rest easy. We are not like them …”1
Following what Abraham Lincoln wanted, Ulysses S. Grant did same thing at Appomattox Court House that day in April 1865. According to the terms of the surrender written by General Grant, the officers and men of the Army of Northern Virginia were to give their “paroles not to take up arms against the Government of the United States” and were then “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.”
In other words, no soldier or officer of the Army of Northern Virginia, from the lowest private to highest officer, could be imprisoned or charged with any crime by the U.S. Government. Not even Robert E. Lee himself could be charged with treason.
When Union soldiers began cheering in celebration of the surrender, General Grant ordered them to stop. "The Confederates were now our countrymen, and we did not want to exult over their downfall," he said.
While today this all seems appropriate and to have been expected, it wasn’t. It was, in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, an amazing act of magnanimity. Over 600,000 men on the Union side were either killed or wounded in four bloody years of fighting. And yet, with a stroke of a pen and the strength of his word and character, Ulysses S. Grant put America on the road to reconciliation.
For reasons beyond General Grant’s control (many of them on the side of his former foes), that reconciliation took longer than it should have. But Ulysses S. Grant did his part, and more, to achieve that reconciliation. It was an incredible moment in American history, and I wanted our children to see where it happened. It was well worth a 90-mile detour.
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1 Michael Zantovsky, Havel: A Life (2014), p.303.
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