"It would perhaps be more just to say, Mr. Warner, that we have not been beaten, but that we've worn ourselves out, fighting. Besides, the spring is here, a lot of us are homesick, and it's time to put in the crops."
"I think that's a good way to leave it," said Dick. "Do you know where my cousin, Harry Kenton, is?"
"I saw him this morning," replied St. Clair, "and I can assure you that he's taken no harm. He's riding ahead of the commander-in-chief, and he should be here soon."
A trumpet sounded and they separated, returning respectively to their own lines. Standing on a low hill, Dick saw Harry Kenton and Dalton dismount and then stand on one side, as if in expectancy. Dick knew for whom they were waiting, and his own heart beat hard. A great hum and murmur arose, when the gray figure of an elderly man riding the famous war horse, Traveler, appeared.
It was Lee, and in this moment, when his heart must have bled, his bearing was proud and high. He was worn somewhat, and he had lost strength from the great privations and anxieties of the retreat, but he held himself erect. He was clothed in a fine new uniform, and he wore buckled at his side a splendid new sword, recently sent to him as a present.
Near by stood a farm house belonging to Wilmer McLean, but, Grant not yet having come, the Southern commander-in-chief dismounted, and, as the air was close and hot, he remained a little while under the shade of an apple tree, the famous apple tree of Appomattox, around which truth and legend have played so much.
Dick was fully conscious of everything now. He realized the greatness of the moment, and he would not miss any detail of any movement on the part of the principals. It was nearly three o'clock in the afternoon when Grant and his staff rode up, the Union leader still wearing his plain blue blouse, no sword at his side, his shoulder straps alone signifying his rank.
The two generals who had faced each other with such resolution in that terrible conflict shook hands, and Dick saw them talking pleasantly as if they were chance acquaintances who had just met once more. Presently they went into the McLean house, several of General Grant's staff accompanying him, but Lee taking with him only Colonel Thomas Marshall.
Before the day was over Dick learned all that had occurred inside that unpretentious but celebrated farm house. The two great commanders, at first did not allude to the civil war, but spoke of the old war in Mexico, where Lee, the elder, had been General Winfield Scott's chief of staff, and the head of his engineer corps, with Grant, the younger, as a lieutenant and quartermaster. It never entered the wildest dreams of either then that they should lead the armies of a divided nation engaged in mortal combat. Now they had only pleasant recollections of each other, and they talked of the old days, of Contreras, Molino del Rey, and other battles in the Valley of Mexico.
They sat down at a plain table, and then came in the straightforward manner characteristic of both to the great business in hand. Colonel Marshall supplied the paper for the historic documents now about to be written and signed.