Sold – Grant reflects on the years and battles, and on the end of the “Great Rebellion”
The Only Letter of General US Grant Referencing the Surrender of Robert E. Lee, Written Contemporaneous With the Civil War, That We Have Seen.
There have been three definitive moments in American history. The first occurred on July 4, 1776, when the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence and commenced the history of the United States; the second was the surrender of Robert E. Lee to Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865, which...
There have been three definitive moments in American history. The first occurred on July 4, 1776, when the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence and commenced the history of the United States; the second was the surrender of Robert E. Lee to Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865, which determined the unity and nature of the United States; and the third was the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which brought the United States into world leadership.
Grant described the momentous surrender of Lee: “When I went into the house I found General Lee. We greeted each other, and after shaking hands took our seats. I had my staff with me, a good portion of whom were in the room during the whole of the interview…General Lee was dressed in a full uniform which was entirely new, and was wearing a sword of considerable value, very likely the sword which had been presented by the State of Virginia…We soon fell into a conversation about old army times. He remarked that he remembered me very well in the old army; and I told him that as a matter of course I remembered him perfectly…General Lee called my attention to the object of our meeting, and said that he had asked for this interview for the purpose of getting from me the terms I proposed to give his army. I said I meant merely that his army should lay down their arms, not to take them up again during the continuance of the war unless duly and properly exchanged. He said that he had so understood my letter…He appeared to have no objections to the terms first proposed…When he read over that part of the terms about side arms, horses and private property of the officers, he remarked, with some feeling, I thought, that this would have a happy effect upon his army. He then sat down and wrote out the following letter: ‘April 9, 1865, Lieut.-General U. S. Grant. General: I received your letter of this date containing the terms of the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia as proposed by you. As they are substantially the same as those expressed in your letter of the 8th inst., they are accepted…R. E. Lee, General.’” That moment drew a line in the sand between everything that came before and everything that came after.
Col. Absalom Markland became a personal friend of Grant’s when they were in their early teens. While Grant began a career in the U.S. military, Markland studied law and became a government official in the Office of Indian Affairs. During the presidential campaign of 1860 he supported Abraham Lincoln who, after his election, appointed Markland a special agent in the Post Office Department. When the war broke out, Markland was assigned to assist Grant, who used him not merely to manage and improve mail delivery to his armies, but more importantly as a trusted courier carrying letters and messages between Grant, headquarters, President Lincoln, and other generals.
Barely a month after accepting General Lee’s surrender, and a week before the last significant Confederate army in the field laid down its arms, Grant paused to look back on the lengthy trial of the war, and reflect on the surrender and end of the rebellion. He wrote Markland this letter, and he presented him with the saddle he had used throughout the conflict.
Autograph Letter Signed on his Head Quarters Armies of the United States letterhead, Washington, May 19, 1865, to Markland. “I take great pleasure presenting you the ‘Grimsley Saddle’ which I have used in all the battles from Fort Henry, Tenn. in Feby 1862, to the battles about Petersburg, Va. ending in the surrender of Lee’s Army at Appomattox C.H. Va. on the 9th of Apl. 1865. I present this saddle not for any intrinsic value it possesses, but as a mark of friendship and esteem after continued service with you through the Great Rebellion, our services commencing together at Cairo, Ill. in the Fall of 1861 and continuing to the present day. I hope our friendship, if not our continued services together, will continue as heretofore.” Grant’s Grimsley saddle, gifted in this letter, was one designed by St. Louis saddler Thornton Grimsley. It – brass-bound with padded leather seat – is now on display at the U.S. Army Quartermaster Museum at Fort Lee, Virginia.
In our decades in this field of autographs, we have seen just two or three letters of Grant referencing the surrender, and those were all written decades after the event.

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