The twenty thousand were swept off their feet by the magic of that myth. Grant was almost nominated—but not quite.
The historic interview began in the room to the left of the front door in the McLean house. Two very different figures confronted each other. Grant had not expected the meeting to take place so soon and had left the farmhouse where he had spent the night before in rough garb. He writes: "I was without a sword, as I usually was when on horseback in the field, and wore a soldier's blouse for a coat, with the shoulder-straps of my rank to indicate to the army who I was.... 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.... In my rough traveling suit, the uniform of a private with the straps of a lieutenant-general, I must have contrasted very strangely with a man so handsomely dressed, six feet high and of faultless form. But this was not a matter that I thought of until afterwards."
Lee requested that the terms to be given his army should be written out. Grant asked General Parker of his staff, a full-blooded American Indian, for writing materials. He had prepared nothing beforehand, but he knew just what he wanted to say and he wrote without hesitation terms such as only a great and magnanimous nation could offer its conquered citizens. After providing for the giving of paroles (that is, an agreement not to take up arms again unless the paroled prisoner is later exchanged for a prisoner of the other side) and for the surrender of arms, artillery, and public property, he added: "This will not embrace the sidearms of the officers nor their private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they reside." There are some mistakes in grammar in these words, but there are no mistakes in magnanimity. When Lee, having put on his glasses, had read the first sentence quoted above, he said with feeling:
Lee Surrenders to Grant
"This will have a happy effect upon my army."
He went on to say that many of the privates in the Confederate cavalry and artillery owned their own horses; could they retain them? Grant did not change the written terms, but he said his officers would be instructed to let every Confederate private who claimed to own a horse or mule take the animal home with him. "It was doubtful," writes Grant, "whether they would be able to put in a crop to carry themselves and their families through the next winter without the aid of the horses they were then riding." Again Lee remarked that this would have a happy effect. He then wrote and signed an acceptance of the proposed terms of surrender. The war was over. The first act of peace was our issuing 25,000 rations to the army we had captured. For some days it had lived on parched corn.
