The Terms at Appomattox

On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee walked into the parlor of Wilmer McLean's farmhouse at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. The Civil War had devoured over 600,000 lives. The land was scarred, families shattered, and the surviving soldiers on both sides were hollow-eyed with exhaustion. Lee expected harsh terms from Ulysses S. Grant — confiscation, imprisonment, perhaps worse. Instead, Grant wrote something astonishing.…