The conditions were as generous as Lee could have hoped; His men would not be imprisoned or prosecuted for high treason. Officers were allowed to keep their handguns, horses and personal luggage. [18] In addition to his conditions, Grant also allowed the defeated men to bring their horses and mules home for spring planting, and provided Lee with a supply of food rations for his starving army; Lee said it would have a very happy effect among men and contribute a lot to the reconciliation of the country. [19] The terms of the surrender were recorded in a handwritten document by Grant`s warrant officer, Ely S. Parker, an Indian of the Seneca tribe, and completed around April 16.m, 9, and 9. [20] When Lee discovered that Parker was a Seneca, he remarked, “It`s nice to have a real American here. Parker replied, “Sir, we are all Americans. When Lee left the house and walked away, Grant`s men began to applaud, but Grant ordered an immediate stop. “However, I immediately sent a note to stop him,” he said. “The Confederates were now our compatriots, and we didn`t want to rejoice in their demise,” he said. [21] Custer and other Union officers purchased mcLean`s furniture for the room where Lee and Grant met as souvenirs and emptied it of furniture.
Grant soon visited the Confederate army, then he and Lee sat on the porch of the McLean House and met visitors like Longstreet and George Pickett before the two men went to their capitals. [22] Several historians have noted what they see as the contradictory nature of Lee`s beliefs and actions regarding race and slavery. While Lee protested that he had sympathetic feelings for blacks, they were subordinate to his own racial identity. [64] While Lee viewed slavery as an evil institution, he also saw some benefits for blacks who were kept in slavery. [65] While Lee helped individual slaves in Liberia to freedom and ensured their emancipation in his own will,[66] he believed that slaves should ultimately be delivered in general only at an indefinite future time as part of God`s purpose. [64] [67] For Lee, slavery was a moral and religious issue, not an issue that would give way to political solutions. [68] Emancipation would rather come from the Christian impulse among slave owners before “storms and storms of fiery controversy” as they took place in “Bleeding Kansas.” [64] Unlike Southerners who advocated slavery as a positive good, Lee, in his well-known analysis of slavery from an 1856 letter (see below), called it a moral and political evil. While Robert and his wife Mary Lee were disgusted by slavery, they also defended him against abolitionist demands for immediate emancipation for all slaves. [69] Most family members, such as Elder Smith, also reluctantly chose the South, but Smith`s wife and Lee`s sister Anne still supported the Union; Anne`s son joined the Union army, and no one in his family ever spoke to Lee again.
Many cousins fought for Confederation, but Phillips and John Fitzgerald personally told Lee they would take the oath; John H. Upshur remained in the Union army despite strong family pressures; Roger Jones remained in the Union Army after Lee refused to advise him on what to do; and two of Philip Fendall`s sons fought for the Union. Forty percent of Virginia`s officers remained in the North. [99] [97] While stationed at Fort Monroe, Lee married Mary Anna Randolph Custis (1808-1873), great-granddaughter of Martha Washington and her first husband Daniel Parke Custis and step-great-granddaughter of George Washington, the first president of the United States. Mary was the only surviving child of George Washington Parke Custis, grandson of George Washington, and Mary Lee Fitzhugh Custis, daughter of William Fitzhugh.[29] and Ann Bolling Randolph. Robert and Marie were married on September 30. She died in 1831 at Arlington House, just across from the Potomac river from Washington. The 3rd U.S. Artillery served as the guard of honor at the wedding. After all, they had seven children, three boys and four girls:[30] Why was McLean House chosen for the famous reunion, and what has happened to the house since 1865? Nevertheless, in the mid-1860s, the story of the capitulation of the apple orchard was introduced several times, illustrated in a colorful way and made available to a welcoming audience by the country`s most imaginative popular culture providers, the publishers of popular prints. .