Letters from an American - Meeting at Appomattox

Episode Date: April 9, 2026

April 8, 2026General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General Robert E. Lee agreed to meet at the home of Wilmer McLean in Appomattox on the afternoon of April 9 to work out the terms of the surrender of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, Upon signing the papers, the grandly dressed Lee told the somewhat disheveled Grant that his men were starving, Grant did not hesitate to agree to provide the soldiers with provisions, The Civil War was not won, as the South had imagined, by wealthy aristocrats, but by ordinary men of the Union Army who, like Grant, knew that they had a job to do.Watch today's recording here: https://www.youtube.com/live/g9TUa1Rwd6U?si=T8_KKcHQZElhpnZ-Get full, free access to Letters from an American here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribeYou can also find me:Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hcrichardson.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathercoxrichardson/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@heathercoxrichardson Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

April 8, 26. On April 8th, 1865, General Ulysses S. Grant was having a hard night. His army had been harrying Confederate General Robert E. Lee's for days, and Grant knew it was only a question of time before Lee had to surrender. The people in the Virginia countryside were starving, and Lee's army was melting away. Just that morning, a Confederate colonel had thrown himself on Grant's mercy, after realizing that he was the only man in his entire regiment who had not already abandoned the cause.

But while Grant had twice asked Lee to surrender, Lee still insisted his men could fight on. So on the night of April 8th, Grant retired to bed in a Virginia farmhouse, dirty, tired, and miserable with a migraine. He spent the night, bathing my feet in hot water and mustard, and putting mustard plasters on my wrists in the back part of my neck, hoping to be cured by mourning. It didn't work. When morning came, Grant pulled on his clothes from the day before and rode out to the head of his column, with his head throbbing. As he rode, an escort arrived with a note from Lee requesting an interview for the purpose of surrendering his army of Northern Virginia. When the officer reached me, I was still suffering with the sick headache, Grant recalled, but the instant I saw the contents of the

note, I was cured. The two men met in the home of Wilmer McLean in the village of Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia. Lee had dressed grandly for the occasion in a brand new general's uniform, carrying a dress sword. Grant wore simply the rough garb of a private with the shoulder straps of a lieutenant general. But the images of the wealthy noble South and the humble North hit a very different reality. As soon as the papers were signed, Lee told Grant his men were starving and asked if the Union General could provide the Confederates with rations. Grant didn't hesitate. Certainly, he responded, before asking how many men needed food. He took Lee's answer, about 25,000, in stride, telling the judges,

that he could have all the provisions wanted. By spring 1865, the Confederates who had ridden off to war four years before, boasting that their wealthy aristocrats would beat the North's money-grubbing shopkeepers in a single battle, were broken and starving, while the Union Army, backed by a booming industrial economy, could provide rations for 25,000 men on a moment's notice. The Civil War was won not by the dashing sons of wealthy planters, but by men like Grant, who dragged himself out of his blankets and pulled a dirty soldier's uniform over his pounding head on an April morning

because he knew he had to get up and get to work. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead of Massachusetts, recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.