The Army of the Potomac, under the command of Major General George Meade, had besieged General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia in the trenches around Petersburg for the better part of nine months. That came to an end on April 2, 1865, when Grant ordered Meade to make a general assault along the entirety of Lee's works. The resulting attack caused an almost total collapse of Lee's position. The Grey Fox was forced to retreat and abandon Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, to the Union army. The Federals entered the abandoned and burned out city the next day (April 3).

Unwilling to rest on his laurels, Grant ordered an all-out pursuit of Lee's army as it retreated to the west. Lee's hope was to catch a train to North Carolina where his army could link up with that of General Joseph E. Johnston's to continue the fight against the United States. Lee's men by this point were tired and hungry and unable to move with the characteristic speed which had come to define the Army of Northern Virginia over the years. The Union Army of the Potomac pursued them relentlessly, skirmishing with the tail end of Lee's column almost every day.

At Sailor's Creek on April 6, Lee's army was dealt an almost fatal blow when close to 8,000 of Lee's soldiers were cut off and taken prisoner by troops under the command of Major General Philip Sheridan. Lee now had fewer than 30,000 men left in his once-vaunted army. That evening, Grant opened up a message exchange with Lee, attempting to entice the old Confederate general into surrender. Lee, however, was not yet willing to admit defeat, choosing instead to continue his retreat to the west in the hopes of finding food for his men and trains to take his army south into the Carolinas.

On the morning of April 9, 1865, things finally came to a head at Appomattox Court House. Here the balance of the Army of the Potomac finally caught up to the Army of Northern Virginia. Some 64,000 Union soldiers under the combined leadership of Sheridan converged on the small hamlet where the Confederate army had taken up refuge. Lee's battered and exhausted men attempted to break out of the encirclement bearing down upon them but they were too weak and too outnumbered. Lee, staring reality in the face, finally consented to Grant's earlier requests to surrender.

A cease-fire went into effect as both sides prepared for formal surrender negotiations. Lee arrived at the appointed place on time and in ceremonial garb. Grant was late and came into the parlor of the McLean House muddied and dressed in his field uniform. The two men exchanged pleasantries, briefly recalled their short meeting in Mexico back in 1848, before finally getting down to business. Grant's terms were generous. Lee's men would not be imprisoned or prosecuted for treason. Officers would be allowed to keep their sidearms, horses, and personal baggage. Any enlisted man who had with him a horse or mule was allowed to leave with it to assist him in the coming harvest. What was more, Grant agreed to immediately supply Lee's army with much-needed provisions such as food. The surrender document was signed around 4 PM.

When word reached the rest of the army of Lee's formal surrender, the Union men broke out into celebration. Grant quickly ordered those celebrations stopped. The men of the North and the South were countrymen once again and those from the South, at present, were in need of assistance. Union soldiers shared their rations with their former foe that evening. Grant sought out and happily embraced his old friend James Longstreet, Lee's second-in-command, who had been Best Man at Grant's wedding shortly after the Mexican War.

As word of Lee's surrender spread throughout the country, the people celebrated. One by one, other much smaller Confederate armies began to lay down their arms. By May of 1865, every single Confederate soldier had quit the fight. But this would not have been possible if not for the surrender of Robert E. Lee and his famed Army of Northern Virginia...156 years ago today.

The McLean House - site of Lee's surrender

The McLean Parlor - where Lee surrendered to Grant