In this field on April 14, 1865, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee settled into his last camp with a small group of staff officers. After four years of campaigning and the clamor of tens of thousands of soldiers, Lee unsaddled Traveller and entered his tent for the final time, alone in the quiet night. Just five days earlier, on April 9, he had surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House. Lee did not attend the formal surrender ceremonies but remained in his headquarters tent just over a mile north of the surrender ground. On April 12, Lee left Appomattox for Richmond with Col. Walter Taylor, Col. Charles Marshall, and Maj. Giles Cooke. The first day, Lee and his party rode more than twenty miles and spent the night in the woods a few miles beyond Buckingham County Court. On April 14, they arrived nearby at the crowded house of Lee's brother, Charles Carter Lee. The men were invited to spend the next night in John Gilliam's house. Lee declined and slept in his tent here on Gilliam's lawn. After breakfasting with the Gilliams in the morning, Lee packed up his campaign chest and left for Richmond with his son Gen. William Henry Fitzhugh "Rooney" Lee and Charles Carter Lee's son, John Lee. Riding through Powhatan and Chesterfield counties, the trio crossed the James River into Richmond on a Union pontoon bridge. At 707 East Franklin St., Lee found his waiting family and an uncertain future.