“Message of Peace”

From near his headquarters atop the rise in front of you, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant sent a brief note announcing the surrender after finishing his meeting with Lee at the McLean House. He paused along the road to write the message, which reached Washington within hours, and by midnight bells were tolling in celebration throughout the North. Among the small gathering of tents there, Grant spent his last night in the field, then departed the next day for Washington, D.C., leaving details of the Confederate surrender to military commissioners. The defeat of Lee’s army had required eleven months of constant toil, bloodshed, and death, and Grant left Appomattox Court House a national hero.

Virginia · United States