Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, ending the war in Virginia

On April 9, 1865, hemmed in by Union cavalry, stripped of supplies, and badly outnumbered, General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant. The two met in the parlor of farmer Wilmer McLean’s brick home at Appomattox Court House, Virginia.

Grant’s terms were notably generous. Confederate soldiers stacked their weapons and flags, but officers kept their sidearms and personal horses, and all were paroled to return home unmolested. Grant also issued 25,000 rations to Lee’s hungry men.

By 3:00 p.m. the meeting ended with a handshake.

Around 30,000 Confederates laid down their arms. The surrender did not formally end the war — scattered armies fought on into June — but it broke the Confederacy’s spine. As the National Park Service puts it, Appomattox was “the beginning of the end.”