All these persons were composed. Their faces were haggard from want of rest, but there was nothing in their expressions indicating anxiety, though some gloom.
“It was a picture for an artist,” said that one of them who described the scene to me afterward. The ruddy light brought out every detail of these martial figures. By that fire on the roadside had assembled for the last time General Robert E. Lee and his corps commanders.
The council was brief.
General Lee succinctly laid before his listeners the whole situation.
His army was on a strip of land between the James River and the enemy. He could not cross the river—if he could not break through the enemy in his front the army was lost. General Grant had understood his situation, and a correspondence had taken place. He would read General Grant’s notes and copies of his own replies.
By the light of the fire, General Lee then proceeded to read the papers alluded too.
Grant had opened the correspondence. “The result of the last week must convince General Lee,” he wrote, “of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the army of Northern Virginia.” He therefore “asked the surrender” of that army to prevent bloodshed.
Lee had written in reply, requesting Grant to state the terms.
Grant had stated them on this 8th of April, and Lee had replied at once that he “did not intend to propose the surrender of the army of Northern Virginia, but to ask the terms of General Grant’s proposition. To be frank,” he had added, “I do not think the emergency has arisen to call for the surrender.” But he would meet General Grant on the next morning to discuss the whole affair.
There the correspondence had terminated. What was the opinion of his corps commanders?