Articles of Agreement Relating to the Surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia

The Articles of Agreement Relating to the Surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, dictated by Union general Ulysses S. Grant and signed by Confederate general Robert E. Lee in April 1865, signaled that the American Civil War was nearly over. After Grant captured the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, on April 3, 1865, Lee's army of fewer than thirty thousand straggling men was on the run and pressured on three sides by three times as many men. Lee's last hope to reach the food and provisions waiting at Appomattox Station was dashed when General Philip Sheridan's cavalry arrived first on April 8.

Realizing the futility of further resistance, Lee sent out flags of truce and wrote a note to Grant requesting an interview to arrange the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. After a series of notes, the two leaders agreed to meet on April 9, 1865. Lee sent a subordinate to choose a meeting place in the village of Appomattox Court House. Ironically, the house chosen belonged to Mr. Wilmer McLean, who had moved from Manassas Junction to Appomattox four years earlier, after the first battle of Bull Run, to get out of harm's way.

The meeting lasted approximately two and a half hours. Lee asked that the terms of surrender be formally written out. When Grant completed the finished copy of the Articles of Agreement Relating to the Surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, the two generals signed it. A little before four o'clock Lee shook hands with Grant, bowed to the other officers, and left the room. At the meeting's conclusion, the bloodiest conflict in the nation's history neared its end.