Bear Grease - Ep. 484: Civil War - Part 6: Unconditional Surrender

Episode Date: July 29, 2026

In this final chapter of our Civil War series, we once again hear from historians J.D. Huitt, Dr. Brooks Blevins, and Dr. Louis Gallo to trace the final eighteen months of the conflict—from Gettysburg and Vicksburg to Grant's relentless Overland Campaign and Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House. Along the way, host Clay Newcomb examines how Ulysses S. Grant transformed modern warfare through his philosophy of total war, why Abraham Lincoln came to trust him above every other Union general, and how Grant's quiet humility shaped one of the most remarkable victories in American history. We also explore the humanity displayed at Appomattox, the myths surrounding the surrender, and why historians still debate the reasons the Confederacy ultimately failed. Thank you to our sponsor, Tecovas. If you have comments on the show, send us a note to [e-mail] Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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As difficult as it is for someone today in the south to look back, and to call them the T word traders. I mean, that's what they were. They were rebellious. They were traitors. And to be able to have the magnanimity to realize that the most important thing is we need to get this country back in order. And the quickest way to do that is to treat these people who yesterday we were shooting at and trying to kill as fellow humans and as fellow Americans. The elusive final episode of our Civil War series is here.

We'll be speaking with all of our experts. J.D. Hewitt of the History Underground YouTube channel, Dr. Brooks Blevins of Missouri State University, and Dr. Louis Gallo of the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library. The deck is stacked where we left off with U.S. Grant rising the power with this total war philosophy that will march this war right to Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia. I really doubt that you're going to want to miss this final episode. My name is Clay Newcomb and this is the Bear Grease podcast where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight in unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land.

Brought to you by Tukovas Boots. a cowboy boot man and I've been wearing Tocovas for years. They're the most comfortable boot I've ever put on. Good boots for good times. I'm in Starkville at Mississippi State University at the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library and I'm looking at one of Grant's pistols. My conspiracy theories on why this Union General's Library is deep in the South have been proven untrue. But that's beside the point, but they do have his gun. regiment, I believe it's an Illinois regiment. Yeah, the 91st Illinois regiment

gives him this pistol. This is Dr. Louis Gallo. He's the managing editor at the library. This is actually his pistol that he would have had. Oh, this is it. This is it. And on the, you can see, you can't see it. But on the bottom, you can see his name was engraved. Wow. Here.

Oh, yeah. So there's an ivory handled, looks like six-shot musket-style pistol with a really intricate engraving. on it. That's real elephant ivory. This gun is in great shape. What's really interesting about this, so when we got this, see the little powder, it had gunpowder in it. So Grant's original gunpowder was in this one. Oh, wow. No, we didn't know really what to do with it, because there was a lot, you know. And so we looked up the guidelines, you know,

the National Park Service guidelines, and it said to dispose of it, you can either just like throw it in the yard, essentially, or you can burn it or, and we were like, let's burn Grant. Gunpowder. Does a hundred and sixty-year-old gunpowder burn, you ask? Well, the answer is the same as this one. Does a wild donkey bray when it yearns for green grass? Still don't know the answer? Louie has a video. All right, we are here at the Civil War Arsenal Museum, where Duffy is the curator, and we are going to answer the question, does Ulysses S. Grant's gunpowder still light? After a hundred and sixty-plus year. Louis lights a fuse leading to a pile of gunpowder about the size of a small ant hill. They scuffle back after it lights. It explodes in a four-foot-tall poof-of-flame.

Powder will still ignite 160 years later. You did a wonderful job. Well, thank you. That was a lot bigger than I expected it. The explosion reminds me of the time I tried to light a fire with gunpowder on a cold, backwood's deer hunt that singed the hair off my face, but that's beside the point. Some might be thankful that that powder wasn't used to kill someone's ancestor in battle, but what we've learned is that a lot of folks died in this war, more than all American wars

combined. To get this finale started off right, we're going back to our OG expert, J.D. Hewitt, of the History Underground YouTube channel, introducing us to a critical bow to. that began to tip the scales of victory. This is essential to understand as we bring the Civil War plane to a landing. But remember, Grant wasn't yet leading the main Union military. But at the time of this battle that JD is about to tell us about, Grant was finishing up in Vicksburg, which would put him on Lincoln's map. But Grant wasn't even at this battle in the Eastern Theater.

I would imagine that it's about impossible to talk about the Civil War without talking about Gettysburg. Even for people who know nothing about the Civil War, they... You know that battle. Or you know of the battle. You at least know the name. Yes. You know, there's a movie that was made in 1993 about it. It's one of the most visited historic sites in the United States.

So Gettysburg is kind of what I can. call the Rosetta Stone of the Civil War. If people are getting into the Civil War, if you study the Battle of Gettysburg, it helps you to start understanding other points of the Civil War. So in short, it's one of the major turning points of the Civil War. Sometimes it's called the high watermark of the Confederacy. I wouldn't say it's the most important battle of the Civil War, but it's definitely one of the turning points. Essentially, what you have is in the summer of 1863, Robert E. Lee, who is just coming off of his, one of his most remarkable victories at the Battle of Chancellorsville is going to take the Army of Northern Virginia through Maryland up into

Pennsylvania. Again, he's moving the war kind of out of the southern states. Battle of Chancellorsville, He has lost kind of his right-hand guy. Stonewall Jackson has been mortally wounded in that battle. And then there's a reorganization of the Army of Northern Virginia. And he takes his three corps up there. And they're spread out. You're looking at this massive army that is moving through Pennsylvania. Following him is going to be the Army of the Potomac

under the leadership of a guy. by the name of George Gordon Mead. George Gordon Mead has just taken over as the commander of the Army of the Potomac. And his job is to follow Robert E. Lee up into Pennsylvania and basically stay in between the Army of Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. There's a well-known line in Ken Burns Civil War series

where it says that the Battle of Gettysburg was fought over. It's a battle that starts over a fight for shoes. That's not true. In Burns documentary, the colorful historian Shelby Foote noted an anecdote that was true. Some Confederates had been sent to Gettysburg to get shoes for the army when they ran into Union troops. But this would be an oversimplification for why the battle started there. The South was hurting for boots because they didn't have the factories that the North had. and supplies were a constant struggle.

And they were there to find anything, food, clothing, general provisions. So it wasn't just about shoes. The reason that Gettysburg is fought at Gettysburg, and the reasons it is what it is, is it's a hub where 10 roads come in. And on July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of 1863, we have a fight that will result in what is the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. So Antietam is the bloodiest day. This is a three-day battle, bloodiest battle of the Civil War.

I see. Yeah. So this is going to result in a union victory. And in the east, this is going to be a big turning point. In the West, you have Grant, who has had Vicksburg under siege. Battle of Gettysburg finishes up on July 3rd and on July the 4th, the city of Vicksburg. what Jefferson Davis called the nailhead that holds the Confederacy together, Vicksburg is going to fall. In my opinion, from this point, the Civil War is basically over for the Confederacy.

July 1863. July 1863. It's going downhill for the Confederacy. It's going downhill. Now, they are still going to win some battles, but this is where they peak, and it's just going to be a decline. after this. How many people died at Gettysburg? So Battle of Gettysburg, bloodiest battle of the Civil War.

When you're looking at what is considered a bloody battle, you're looking at is the casualty number. So this is killed, missing and wounded. These are people who've been removed from the battle. Total casualties for the Battle of Gettysburg, you're looking at just over 51,000 men. That's both Union and Confederate. Union and Confederate. So Union, just over 23,000.

Confederates about 28,000. Wow. Yeah, which is proportionally more devastating for the Confederates because they're entering the battle with 71,000 men. The Union has about 93,000. So they take a higher proportioned loss in the battle. Gettysburg was important for many reasons, but three stand out. It halted Lee's northern invasion, putting the Confederates on the defensive the rest of the war. The battle made it clear that total war was the only way to really end this thing. And thirdly, it catalyzed the Gettysburg Address where Lincoln articulated the idea of this new birth of freedom. And the 51,000 casualties were a gut check for a nation in crisis.

Surprisingly, only one civilian was killed in this battle. A 20-year-old seamstress named Mary Wade. She died when a stray Confederate bullet struck her while she was in her house, supposedly needing bread. It was said the Confederate wagon train hauling the dead and wounded from the battlefield at Gettysburg was 17 miles long. It would have taken a full day for them to pass by your house if you lived on the road. Gettysburg happened eight months before Grant became the general

of the Union Army. And going back to the original explosion of Grant's gunpowder in this episode, Grant's life was like a delayed explosion. He was 39 years old when the Civil War started, and his adult life had been one failed experiment after another. Basically, as the war rolled on, it was clear that there was going to be no political negotiations.

The South wasn't going to give up easily. And the traditional rules of war had to be overruled. And this late bloomer, Grant would surprise the world. But we ended the last episode on this idea of total war. We said that over and over. Grant brought this thing called Total War. Well, here's Brooks Blevins on Grant's ascension to power in the context of Gettysburg.

You know, I think probably the leader who best exemplified that total war concept that starts to take effect in the latter half of the Civil War is U.S. Grand. He's been around from the beginning of the war, but he's mainly been out west. He's been to Missouri and Kentucky and Tennessee and different places like that. And 1863 becomes the pivotal year militarily, and Grant's right in the middle of that. He's not back east. He's not running Lincoln's personal army at that time. But Grant in 1863 goes down the Mississippi River.

Part of that Anaconda plan that I believe you guys talked about earlier, part of that Anaconda plan was to take the Mississippi River. And by the spring of 1863, there's two strongholds left on the Mississippi. There's Port Hudson in Louisiana, and then more famously, Vicksburg in Mississippi. And Grant's army is tasked with, doing that. And in many ways, it's, it's Grant at Vicksburg, who this is where he kind of first puts into play his, his total warfare idea. And he realizes that it would be folly and suicide to just try to attack Vicksburg over and over in a traditional way. So he uses his army to lay

siege to the town. And they basically just cut off all the supply routes. And there are, lots of civilians in Vicksburg. They're Confederate military in Vicksburg. There's civilians in Vicksburg. And Grant realizes if we're going to take this town, we've just got, we've got to starve them out. Yeah. And so Lincoln starts to get the idea that, hey, this might, this is going to have to get serious. This is getting serious and this might be my guy. Yeah, yeah. Part of this idea of total war would be that there would be sieges on communities and armies starving them out. So the biggest difference in the this kind of war was that it could involve civilians. It was that Vicksburg that Grant would

become known as unconditional surrender Grant, where he spoke the famous words, quote, no terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. In the past, losing armies might have been able to negotiate specific arrangements on timing, specifics about troops, livestock, guns, and the like. But the harsh treatment struck the union and Confederate generals as ungentlemanly. In the book Battle Cry of Freedom, the author states, As a modern general, Grant retired outmoded forms of chivalry, showing that gentility had given way to a stark new brand of modern warfare.

Grant believed the South had conducted an illegal rebellion and wasn't entitled to enjoy the niceties of military etiquette. End of quote. Lincoln would see it like this too, and he would like what Grant did, knowing that it was the only way to victory. It was the only way to save the union and to save human lives was to implement this total war. And later we'd see Sherman, this commander underneath Grant, inflict total war by burning Atlanta in the Shenandoah Valley. Here's Dr. Louis Gallo. It's well known his success with Vicksburg. But after he captures Vicksburg, pretty soon after,

he is then sent to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to capture Chattanooga, which, he does ultimately with the battle of Chattanooga. Very famous battle, a battle above the clouds is what they called it. He takes missionary ridge and look out mountain at Chattanooga. And because of the capture of Chattanooga, this is when Lincoln is like, okay, this is my guy, right? And so I think it's it's in March of 64. He gets sent to Washington, D.C., and he's now promoted by Lincoln to take charge of the army. On March 9, 1864, Grant becomes the big. big general of the Union Army. Grant got there by becoming a master at the psychology of war. I've got two simple quotes that sum up Grant's success in battle. He said,

In every battle there comes the time when both sides consider themselves beaten. Then he who continues the attack wins. That's a simple message of endurance and courage. The second one is like He said the art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can and keep moving on. His philosophy wasn't rocket science. Sometimes success is really simple. And when the principles of that success become ingrained into a person, success can almost be guaranteed. I think we can learn a lot about life here. Grant would also say after the war that often the South would win the battle on the first day. But if they could last through that, he would beat them on the second.

It's a hard thing to get beat and still somehow think that you could win the next day. You'd have to be in total control of your emotions. But Grant was adamant that that happened over and over and over. The South would start strong but couldn't hold on. This basically sums up the civil war. Grant's success wasn't flashy, bombastic, or egocentric. His strategy in some ways even reflected his personality. Humility is the ultimate display of strength.

But it's also easier to be strong when you've got superior numbers and provisions. But we'll talk more about that later. Here's Louis with more on Grant. this is a good moment to talk about Lincoln's perception of Grant, I think is really funny. Lincoln told the story about Grant. He would say that if Grant walked into a room, it would take about five or ten minutes before you even knew he was there. Right. So again, it's kind of telling you about who he was as a person, his demeanor, and how he is in large groups at the time.

And the fact that he's, okay, yeah, now he's a national figure at this point, right? And he's had experience in the public eye, so to speak. but this is the first time where he is in the public. Like, everybody is clamoring to get a look at Grant at D.C., you know. So he definitely understood the task that was in front of him, but he accepted it despite those kind of reservations about, you know, being as public as he was. He was not pompous, at least I don't think it was.

He seemed very, especially, again, in his writings, you see his humility in his right. His style, not just what he spoke about, but the style was very plain. And I don't mean that in like a negative way either. I just mean that in like a, you know, it's a way, I think, the way people can relate to him, right? And to me, it's why his memoirs are still relevant.

Because if you picked up his memoirs and you read them, you, it's such an easy read. Like it's not. It was a good communicator. Yeah, man. Clear, concise, confident, humble. Yes, right. To me, as I learn about him,

it's clear that he was like an instinctual, tactical. just a warrior. Like he just knew how to win. And that was woven into his personality too with this like persistence to just never stop. But then he was also trained at West Point so I'm sure he learned a lot of stuff about tactical war that was important.

But he just had this like killer instinct that felt like that other people just didn't seem to have. I believe this battle instincting Grant wasn't taught but was foundationally instinctual. Honestly, most really great generals probably had this. I see it in hunting. There are some people that just have an unbelievable instinct when it comes to taking game.

They can anticipate animal movement. They have unique insight in topography and nowhere to set up an ambush. They know when to move on a stalk. They have an uncanny sense of timing when on the hunt. They're very good with their weapon. Yes, some of this is learned, but some people are just born naturally better predators than others. I've never been in the military, but if you've watched Rambo, you know that this is true in military stuff too.

That was a joke. But it seems that Grant and Robert E. Lee had this instinct in spades. All these little things, like, and so many people that are successful, we want to see, like, the one thing. that made them great. Yeah. But with him, it was like, it was like all these different components. I think if he had,

if he had had political aspirations, it probably would have crippled him in some way. Mm-hmm. Like, it would have changed him. Yes. If he had had a big ego, just a personal ego, just like, I want people around me

to think I'm really important. I think it would have changed his ability to be effective. Yeah. If he hadn't been this, like, massively, like crossing the river on that horse to go see his wife. Yeah.

If he hadn't had that, dogged determination, which is just like born in you almost, like would have been slightly different. I mean, you see all these like little things that made him who he was. Yeah. And he stands out in contrast so much to all these other Civil War generals. He does. And honestly, and just to be honest with you, it's a question that I still have, right?

I still am trying to understand it myself. Like what makes him different than everybody? Like, think of the countless people. Think of the well-trained people, experienced men in those ranks. But somehow he was able to come out on top. It is interesting. And his ego, that part of it is really interesting to me, too. Sherman, on the other hand, because we annotated Sherman's memoirs as well.

And his writing, in that character, not to compare and contrast it to, but couldn't be any more different than Grant. Right. He is full of himself. He is worried about his legacy. He is worried about who he knows and who knows him and all that stuff. You know, he wasn't, he showed no humility in his memoirs, really, really, as opposed to Grant. Yeah. Who just throughout the whole thing, he's admitting faults.

He talked about the Mexican-American War, called it unjust. He talked about Cold Harbor, are you familiar with Cold Harbor, the Battle of Cold Harbor? During the Overland campaign, when he's trying to capture Lee's Army, a battle of Cold Harbor happens. It's one of the bloodiest battles of the whole war. And it's because Grant just keeps sending men to the, just, just, just, you know, tried to get him, try to, and it didn't work. And it was terrible. And he caught bad press for it, too, because thousands of men died.

For a stalemate, for the end of the day, he... Not much gained. Nothing. He gained nothing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he says in his memoirs, he goes, I regret that more than anything else in my life. Wow. Like, the humility to admit that. That really would take some humility to regret the human life being lost because of decisions

that you made. I mean, it's one thing to be like, man, I regret this financial decision I made 20 years ago or regret this thing I said 20 years ago that hurt someone's feelings. But when you say I regret being the reason

all these guys were killed, that's a pretty big one. Yeah. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Hello. My gosh. Watch all your favorite podcasts

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It's the same hosts and the same chemistry with all the hilarious moments you've been missing. Right on your screen. Cheers. Open the free IHRRadio app. Search video podcasts and tap watch. Before we get back into it, I want to tell you about the new First Light, Bear Grease, Bibs. I have collaborated with First Light to build the perfect backcountry utility.

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Now, Louis is going to fast forward us through the war after Grant becomes the lead general of the Union Army, and Lincoln is going to sick Grant on Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. This is where Lee and Grant go head to head. Lincoln calling on Grant was really, obviously, the real turning point of the war, because now he had a general who was willing to keep going and not just stop if things weren't going well. And so he starts the Overland campaign by crossing the Rapidane River, famous moment. You know, he crosses the Rapidan to start his attack on Liginia. Yeah.

And so he just spends a couple months making the same maneuver, this kind of like half-crescent-shaped river, to kind of keep flanking Lee in order to cross the James River to go after people. Petersburg because Petersburg is basically like the hub for Lee in his resources and his supplies and everything. And so even though people think Richmond might be the goal, Petersburg was the bigger goal. Okay. And so for him to do that, to pull that off despite Cold Harbor, despite the failures at the wilderness, despite all of these stalemates, he just kept going, just kept flanking, kept flanking until he got south of the James. And it's really incredible because, you know, people talk about how Lee was a better tactician than Grant was. Grant was a better strategist, but Lee was a better tactician.

And I think that is true, right? Lee was an incredible... What does that mean? On the field, right? On the field, Lee would have been better, that's what they say. Right. So he had this amazing ability to split up his army and to fend off the opposition, right? So, like, yeah. So like the in the moment, tactical, decision-making that's happening in the field. Lee, widely regarded by most historians as being way better than Grant. I agree, but I think that takes away from Grant's skills

as a tactician, because I think he was pretty clever and incredible himself and tactical, tactically. But strategically, he definitely was better. Now, it may have been because he had more resources than Lee did at the time, but nonetheless, Grant's strategy of go after them

nonstop from every angle, hit them at all points, at all times, no matter what. That was the difference. And that's what made him successful in this campaign. Because while he's trying to capture Lee's army, he's sending Sherman through Georgia. And he, you know, again, historically, really famous,

he burns his way through Georgia, essentially, and then takes the Carolinas, you know. So it's just a full-on assault at the end. Because that was the only way to put them, put them out of their misery essentially. And at this point in the war, Lincoln knew that it had to become total war. Total war phrase that they used to describe it. Like, we're not trying to be chivalrous and save the civilian population.

They're burning houses and supplies. Yeah, I mean, they're going after Lee's Army for the most part, but there is collateral damage for sure. Yeah, for sure. It's a war of attrition. Here's Dr. Blevins on how the war had changed by 1864. all of the kind of the really interesting battles that there are multiple books written about like Gettysburg and Antietam and Shiloh and all these battles. They're all before 1864 because in a large part by 1864 it's become total warfare and it's become siege warfare in a lot of cases like we saw at Vicksburg. Siege meaning you surround a place and just cut off the spot.

Yeah, you surround it. You build trenches. Civil War was one of the first times in world history when you saw trench warfare. And of course, that would explode in World War I. That's the war that's famous for trench warfare. But the Civil War had lots of trench warfare digging ditches and hunkering down in these ditches, people in ditches looking at each other across this long expanse. And so that's really what the war devolves into in 1864.

Because what Lincoln and what Grant both realize is, From the beginning of this war, the union has had a great advantage in terms of manpower. By 1864, that manpower advantage is greater than they had expected because now they have black troops. And they've had the advantage in material. The north is where 90% of all the stuff was manufactured in the United States before the Civil War. And so they can, they had the capacity. The South played catch up, the whole war trying to. the found factories and stuff like that.

So the North had way more people and way more supplies to give them. And Grant and his former subordinate, William T. Sherman, both realized that. And so Grant and Sherman become the big Union generals at the end of the war. In 1864, Sherman lays siege to Atlanta and eventually captures Atlanta

and famously marches to the sea. Up in Virginia, you've got Grant. taking the Army of the Potomac and fighting with Robert E. Lee, and these are battles. They're big, terrible bloody battles, but they're not the romantic sweeping battles like Gettysburg and Antietam. These are just slog total warfare kind of battles. When Sherman was in Atlanta, he told the mayor of the city, war is cruelty and you cannot refine it. But when peace does come, you may call on me for anything.

then I will share with you my last cracker. He went on to say, quote, we're not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people. We must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war. We cannot change the hearts of the people of the South, but we can make war so terrible and make them so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it. end of quote

to this day many people in the south are still sour about Sherman's campaign and grants I actually got an Instagram message from a listener from South Carolina who claims that his family has detailed records of Sherman's men

burning both sides of his three times great grandparents farms and I believe he probably does he said that both of his grandfathers were killed trying to protect their farms, and they believe that Union soldiers raped and murdered one of the grandmothers. Abuse and atrocities no doubt happened. But we also know that the Confederates

burned up a lot of stuff as they fled Sherman trying to hurt him when it came to supplies. War is cruelty, and it cannot be refined. About this time, the Confederates had all made a unique turn in their stance on blacks in the military. In 1864, Jefferson Davis would try to get the Confederate Congress to buy 40,000 slaves to put them into their rapidly depleting armies. But it never happened. Though few black soldiers actually fought for the Confederacy, between 20 and 60,000 blacks were in Confederate camps, working but weren't really fighting. The records show that less than 3,000 blacks received Confederate pensions, meaning they actually fought.

But those are the ones that survived. So presumably many more than that fought and died. However, you probably remember Hulk Collier did fight for the Confederate Army and received a Confederate pension. But now it's late 1864. The war has almost no end in sight. They don't know how it's going to end. And Abe Lincoln is back up for a very contested re-election in November.

Here's Dr. Blevins. One of the things that really helps him is when Sherman takes Atlanta in September of 1864. And that's a big, that's a big plus for him. And then as you get closer to November, it becomes clearer and clearer that the Confederacy seems to be kind of on their last legs there. But still, if you look at the election of 1864, 45% of the people in the north voted against Lincoln. Wow. He got about 55% of the vote.

Wow. And again, you know, we think it's Lincoln. I mean, he's not going to vote for Lincoln, right? If he were around today, everybody would rush out and try to vote for Abe Lincoln. But 45% of the people voted against him. So it wasn't, again, it wasn't a done deal in the minds of a lot of people. at that time. But he gets, you know, his so-called Christmas present from William T. Sherman, which is the

city of Savannah, Georgia. And really, those last few months of the war into 1865, it does become just a case where the Confederacy is, they're running out of supplies, they're running out of food, they're just, they're just dying on the vine pretty much. and eventually Lee just runs out of stuff. I mean, he runs out of supplies in Virginia, and he tries to take his army and escape the trenches and find a way out, and he thinks, well,

if I can get away from Grant and reconnect with the Confederate Army that's hanging out down in North Carolina, then maybe we can do something together. But Philip Sheridan's cavalry, one of Grant's subordinates, cuts him off. And at that point, this is in April of 1865, and Robert Ely realizes, hey, that's it. There's no use in any more of my men dying for what is pretty obviously a lost cause at this point. And so on April 9th, 1865, he formally surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia.

Appomattox Courthouse was a rural community of about 150 people, including several slaves. It's an obscure place for such a significant moment. An Appomattox Courthouse is the full name of the town. It's actually not a courthouse in Appomattox. It's a town. But it's also the location of one of the most bizarre coincidences of the Civil War. After the surrender, Grant would invite Robert E. Lee to the home of Wilmer McLean in Appomattox Courthouse for the official negotiations.

Grant didn't know McLean, but they simply found it a suitable house, and the family had reluctantly agreed to host the event. Can you imagine tidying up the house and making snacks for Grant and leave? Ironically, the McLean's own nine slaves, so they probably did most of the work, but their servitude wouldn't last much longer. But here's the coincidence. Wilmer McLean had lived near Manassas in 1861, where his home had become one of the first Confederate headquarters

in the first major battle of the Civil War, Manassas or Bull Run. And his house took a heavy shelling that got pretty much blown up. Afterwards, he moved his family 140 miles south to Appomatto's courthouse to get away from the war, which basically would start and end at his home in two different places, 140 miles apart. On that April afternoon, when Grant requested to use their parlor, I can imagine McLean's wife saying,

they can do the surrender here as long as they don't blow up the house again. But what actually happens in Miss McLean's living room between Grant and Lee is even more interesting. Grant had had a severe headache that day that immediately evaporated when he got word of Lee's desire to surrender. Mick Fierston, our Civil War author, he describes the meeting of Grant and Lee, and I wanted to read what he wrote. He said, The vanquished commander, six feet tall and erected bearing, arrived in full-dress uniform with sash and jeweled sword. The victor, five feet eight, with stooped shoulders, appeared in his usual private's blouse with mud-spattered trousers tucked into muddy boots, because his headquarters wagon had fallen behind him in the race to cut off the enemy. So Grant is just in his common battle clothes, and Lee is in full military dress. Grant expressed some embarrassment about his dress, not wanting to offend Lee by his informality, but he just,

didn't have his nice clothes with him. They didn't know when this was going to happen. One officer would later say that Grant looked like a fly on a shoulder of beef. Grant was 42 years old with no gray in his beard. Robert E. Lee was 58. Here's Louis. There's so many myths about Appomatics, about the meat under the apple tree. But, you know, he gets in there. He sees Lee. And Lee, Lee's all business. He's been defeated, so he's not trying to chum it up with Grant. But Grant is kind of starstruck because he admires Lee. And he even says, hey, do you remember? We met during the Mexican-American War. And Lee's like, we're not here for that. We need to. Didn't he say,

I don't really remember that? He didn't remember, yeah, at all. Lee didn't. Even if he had, he probably wouldn't have said he did. Yeah, he'd probably not want to, again, have a laugh. It's like the low point of Robert Lee's life probably. The whole life, yeah. And the high point probably of Grant's life. I would say so, yeah. So it's a little bit different situation for both of them. And so that's such an interesting moment. He's like, hey, we met before.

I've done that before with people. Like, hey, I've met you before. And they're like, okay. Yeah, I don't really remember that. But yeah. Right, right. It's kind of like this brush off. Like, I don't remember you.

But it is interesting that Grant remembers, but Robert Lee doesn't. Yeah. It shows you the, even at the time in the Mexican-American War, Robert Lee is such a high figure in the military ranks. There's no photographs of that moment. No. There's paintings. No cell phone video.

They didn't have any cell phones. It'd been nice, isn't it? Wow. And that's part of the reason why there's so many myths. It's hard to record that stuff, you know? And so all we have is, you know, the terms of surrender and the stories. Lee actually said to Grant, yes, I know I met you on that occasion, and I've often thought of it and tried to recollect how you looked.

but I have never been able to recall a single feature. Lee didn't remember him, but Grant was living rent-free in Lee's head. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Hello. My gosh. Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish, right inside the free IHare Radio app. Gets the blood going up. Catch every laugh and eye roll on shows like the Tom Green Farmcast and park the bus.

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They're made for small game hunting. They're made for working on the farm. and they're the bear grease bibs man they're now for sale at the meat eater.com slash bibbs so lee's surrender at appomattox courthouse is such an interesting moment in u.s history i want to read from macpherson's book here he says with a heavy heart lee decided quote there is nothing left for me to do but go and see general grant and i would rather die a thousand deaths he says I mean, you just get the sense this guy's just at his wits end. And, I mean, he's been fighting for all these years. But he says, the terms were generous. Officers and men could go home, quote, not to be disturbed by U.S. authorities so long as they observe their paroles

and the laws in force where they may reside. So this is Grant offering terms to these Confederate men and generals. This clause had great significance, serving as a model for the subsequent surrender of the Confederate armies. It guaranteed Southern soldiers immunity from prosecution for treason. Lee asked another favor. In the Confederate Army, he explained, enlisted men in the cavalry and artillery owned their horses. Could they keep them? Yes, Grant said.

Privates, as well as officers who claimed to own horses, could take them home. Quote, to put in a crop to carry them. themselves and their families through the next winter. This will have the best possible effect upon the men, said Lee, and, quote, will do much towards conciliating our people. After signing the papers, Grant introduced Lee to his staff. As he shook hands with Grant's military secretary, Eli Parker, a Seneca Indian, Lee stared a moment at Parker's dark features and said, I'm glad to see one real American here.

Parker responded, we are all Americans. I heard someone tell this story, and I didn't believe it was true. Yeah. It just sounded to Hollywood for Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Courthouse to see an American Indian there and say, oh, this is a real American. I didn't think that happened. And then as I read it here, I mean, I've got to, I mean, this is such a well-respected book and author in his story. and I mean, I assume it's true. Yeah, you think, yeah, if McPherson's got it in there, you think it happened.

But here you just see Lee's concerns, which are so practical. Right. Can my men keep their horses? And then you see, you know, Grant, just how generous they were. Like, we're not going to prosecute you for treason. Right. And it's just pretty fascinating. Yeah.

It is a very unusual surrender scene. And then Grant. feels bad. He later talks about how he felt bad for Robert E. Lee. This is a quote from the book that combines McPherson's words and Grant, but I'll separate it with a quote. Having given birth to a reunited nation, he, Grant, experienced a postpartum melancholy. And he said, quote, I felt sad and depressed at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly and had suffered so much for a cause, though that that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought. That's the end of the quote for Grant. And then McPherson goes on. As news of the surrender spread through

the union camps, batteries began firing joyful salutes until Grant ordered them to stop. Quote, he said, the war is over. The rebels are our countrymen again and the best sign of rejoicing after the victory will be to abstain from all demonstrations. I mean, after this bloodbath, hundreds of thousands of people die. This country is reshaped. It's just this nightmare that no one had seen coming. And Grant, this man who had brought total war to the union, this ideology of total war, just you see such compassion that he has, and you see this humility and strength.

rank, and he tells his guys not to celebrate. I mean, I just think, what astounding character that is. And then it goes on to say that to help bring those former rebels back into the union, Grant sent three days rations for 25,000 men across the lines. This perhaps did something to ease the psychological as well as the physical pain of Lee's soldiers. And you just see at Appomattox Courthouse and the things that followed, you see that these guys kind of have become humanized. And Grant just stands like head and shoulders above the crowd. I also thought it was interesting, Robert E. Lee, one of the things that he asks is he says, can my soldiers keep their horses? You just think about what was top of mind on his list. I don't think I would have thought

that that would have been its concern. But, you know, at this, he said these men need to go home to their families and be able to plow. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Horses and mules. And Grant was just like, yes, let your guys keep their horses. That's fine. It's in that that you see this unique thing. Like if this had been an invading country from Europe, I don't think we would have been so sympathetic. But there's this real sense of these are our countrymen. They've just gone astray. I mean, they were pretty empathetic. And I think Grant and Lincoln were more empathetic than a lot of their own countrymen wanted them to be. I mean, we know they were. We know that the radical wing of the Republican Party was not happy with the sort of moderation that Lincoln and Grant approached the end of the war. Of course, Lincoln wouldn't be around, unfortunately, long enough to have any bearing on the end of the war. But he believed, and, you know, it's really tough to put yourself in that situation to spend four years fighting a foe and to have, you know, tens of thousands of your countrymen killed by these, by these rebels. And that's what they were.

They were rebels and they were officially traitors to the United States. You know, as difficult as it is for someone today in the South to look back and, you know, to call them the T word traitors. I mean, that's what they were. They were rebellious. They were traitors. And to be able to have the agnonimimic. to realize that the most important thing is we need to get this country back in order.

And the quickest way to do that is to treat these people who yesterday we were shooting at and trying to kill as fellow humans and as fellow Americans. The thing that made the Civil War most unique among wars on the battlefield was that it was brothers fighting against brothers. and that was also the thing that made it unique after the surrender. Brothers were surrendering to brothers. I found this interesting. After the surrender, Grant talked about his perceptions of Lee at Appomatics.

He said, what General Lee's feelings were, I do not know. He was a man of such dignity with an impassable face. It was impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the end. had finally come or felt sad over the result. It was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings, they were entirely concealed from my observation. That's interesting. As we come to the end of our Civil War series, as with anything I research,

I'm always looking for holes or biases in the way that I think about these things. And there is one glaring hole in our Bear-Gree series. series on the Civil War. We've given ample coverage of the Union and Confederate militaries, including multiple personalities on both sides and their politics. We've talked about what I've learned about my family's involvement in the Civil War. I've tried to understand how all these people felt what they thought, what motivated them. However, a group that has been left out are the actual 4 million American slaves that were

emancipated after the war. These people knew what was going on this whole time. Word spread through the plantations. They overheard conversations. They were active players in this war whose lives were most impacted by the results. Hundreds of thousands of them fought. Many died. But it's kind of a blank spot on the map in this series.

And some of that is my reporting bias. But some of it is an information gap. Most enslaved people were illiterate, and history seems to forget the illiterate. Can you imagine the conversations among these people when they heard about Appomattox Courthouse? Can you imagine what they did after the surrender? These people had been on plantations for generations. Where do they go? What did they do the next day?

Making six hour-long episodes is like dipping a bucket. a half dozen times into the ocean of the Civil War. So it's partly just a limitation of time and bandwidth. And I just wanted to acknowledge that. I hope it doesn't come across as some weak virtue signaling, but it's just something that I've thought about. I'd now like to address another question that historians have grappled with for 160 years. Why did the South lose? I'd like to read from McPherson's book, Battle Cry of Freedom. On page 855, he writes, For Southerners, this explanation usually took some such form as these words of a Virginian.

They never whipped us, sir, unless they were four to one. If we had anything like a fair chance or less disparity of numbers, we should have won our cause and established our independence. The North had a potential manpower superiority of. of more than three to one, counting only white men, and Union armed forces had an actual superiority of two to one during most of the war. In economic resources and logistical capacity,

the Northern advantage was even greater. Thus, in this explanation, the Confederacy fought against overwhelming odds and its defeat was inevitable. But this explanation has not satisfied a good many analysts. History is replete with examples of people who have won or defended their independence against greater odds. The Netherlands against the Spain of Philip II, Switzerland against the Habsburg Empire,

the American rebels of 1776 against Mighty Britain, North Vietnam against the United States of 1970, given the advantages of fighting on the defensive in its own territory with interior lines in which stalemate would be victory against a foe who must invade, conquer, occupying, destroy the capacity to resist, the odds faced by the South were not formidable. Rather, as another category of interpretations has it, internal divisions fatally weakened the Confederacy. The state rights conflict between certain governors and the Richmond government, the disaffection of non-slaveholders from a rich man's war and a poor man's fight, libertarian opposition to necessary measures such as conscription,

the lukewarm commitment to the Confederacy by the Quantum Whigs and Unionist, the disloyalty of slaves who defected to the enemy whenever they had a chance, growing doubts among slaveholders themselves about the justice of their peculiar institution and their cause. So the Confederacy succumbed to internal rather than external causes, according to numerous historians. The South suffered from a weakness in morale and a loss of the will to fight. The Confederacy did not lack the means to continue to struggle, but the will to do so. I've got one final question for J.D. Hewitt.

At the end of the Civil War, what is the net result for the United States of America? In the Gettysburg address, Lincoln would say that this nation will have undergone a new birth of freedom. So in a sense, in a very painful way, this country is reborn. And we finally live up to the claims that we make in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal. that is going to come at a heavy cost with upwards of 700,000 men who are killed or who lose their lives as a result of this conflict. It's not the end in any way. The end of the Civil War is the beginning of a very difficult period in American history that probably doesn't get the attention that it deserves during the Reconstruction era. these newly freed slaves are going to enter into a very trying time, but are going to be able to start

building something with this new promise that is now finally being lived up to and with this new birth of freedom that the country experiences. What would America be if we hadn't had a civil war? Would we be America? Would the thing just have eventually split politically? And maybe there was a way where they were just like, you know what, let's just divide this thing up. Y'all have your peculiar institution. And we won't.

I mean, I don't know. What, do you ever think about that? Yeah, I do. I'll have people who will leave comments that, you know, we would have been better off, you know, if the South would have won. I don't know if you ever heard that old Hank Williams Jr. song where if the South would have won, we'd be okay. And, you know, it goes. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Very familiar. And it's a catchy song. The typical rebuttal that I have to that is it never would have lasted. Because if the Confederacy would have won, would have become a separate nation, the thing that is baked into the system is going to be secession. And that at any point you can leave. And the idea that the Confederacy is going to be this utopia now that they've separated, from the northern states is just fanciful.

And I think it would have continued to fracture. Texas would have found some reason to break away. And then it becomes its own country. The whole thing would have just become weaker and weaker and weaker. So even though it did come at a heavy cost, I think that, again, if you look at the trajectory of the United States, we've been a better country together than what we've been. we would have been separated.

I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Greece and for following along on our Bear Greece Civil War summer. If you've enjoyed this series, please share it with a friend and leave us a review on Spotify or iTunes. And again, we just really thank you for following along. But don't get down about the Civil War summer coming to an end. I don't know exactly how it's going to play out,

but I have a feeling that we're going to be back with the next chapter in America because it's not over yet. Thanks for listening to Bear Grease and for listening to Brinth's This Country Life and Lakes Backwoods University. Means the world to us. Keep the wild places wild because that's where the bears live.

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