General Sheridan, together with a few selected officers of his staff, mounted and joined General Grant and staff. Together they rode to Mr. McLean’s house, a plain two-story brick residence in the village, to which General Lee had already repaired, and where he was known to be awaiting General Grant’s arrival. Dismounting at the gate, the whole party crossed the yard, and the senior officers present went up onto the porch which protected the front of the house. It extended nearly across the entire house and was railed in, except where five or six steps led up the centre opposite the front door, which was flanked by two small wooden benches, placed close against the house on either side of the entrance. The door opened into a hall that ran the entire length of the house, and on either side of it was a single room with a window in each end of it, and two doors, one at the front and one at the rear of each of the rooms, opening on the hall. The room to the left, as you entered, was the parlor, and it was in this room that General Lee was awaiting General Grant’s arrival.
As General Grant stepped onto the porch he was met by Colonel Babcock, of his staff, who had in the morning been sent forward with a message to General Lee. He had found him resting at the side of the road, and had accompanied him to Mr. McLean’s house.
General Grant went into the house, accompanied by General Rawlins, his chief of staff; General Seth Williams, his adjutant-general; General Rufus Ingalls, his quarter-master-general; and his two aides, General Horace Porter and Lieutenant-Colonel Babcock. After a little time General Sheridan; General M. R. Morgan, General Grant’s chief commissary; Lieutenant-Colonel Ely Parker, his military secretary; Lieutenant-Colonel T. S. Bowers, one of his assistant adjutant-generals; and Captain Robert T. Lincoln and Adam Badeau, aides-de-camp, went into the house at General Grant’s express invitation, sent out, I believe, through Colonel Babcock, who came to the hall-door for the purpose, and they were, I was afterward told, formally presented to General Lee. After a lapse of a few more minutes quite a number of these officers, including General Sheridan, came out into the hall and onto the porch, leaving General Grant and General Lee, Generals Rawlins, Ingalls, Seth Williams, and Porter, and Lieutenant-Colonels Babcock, Ely Parker, and Bowers, together with Colonel Marshall, of General Lee’s staff, in the room, while the terms of the surrender were finally agreed upon and formally signed. These were the only officers, therefore, who were actually present at the official surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia.
After quite a length of time Colonel Babcock came to the door again, opened it, and glanced out. As he did so he placed his forage-cap on one finger, twirled it around, and nodded to us all, as much as to say, “It’s all settled,” and said something in a low tone to General Sheridan. Then they, accompanied by General E. O. C. Ord, the commanding-general of the Army of the James, who had just ridden up to the house, entered the house together, the hall-door partly closed again after them, leaving quite a number of us staff-officers upon the porch.
While the conference between Generals Grant and Lee was still in progress, Generals Merritt and Custer, of the Cavalry Corps, and several of the infantry generals, together with the rest of General Sheridan’s staff-officers, came into the yard, and some of them came up on the porch. Colonel Babcock came out once more, and General Merritt went back to the room with him at his request; but most, if not all, of the infantry generals left us and went back to their respective commands while the conference was still in progress and before it ended.
Just to the right of the house, as we faced it on entering, stood a soldierly looking orderly in a tattered gray uniform, holding three horses—one a fairly well-bred-looking gray, in good heart, though thin in flesh, which, from the accoutrements, I concluded belonged to General Lee; the others, a thoroughbred bay and a fairly good brown, were undoubtedly those of the staff-officer who had accompanied General Lee and of the orderly himself. He was evidently a sensible soldier, too, for as he held the bridles he baited the animals on the young grass, and they ate as though they needed all they had a chance to pick up.
I cannot say exactly how long the conference between Generals Grant and Lee lasted, but after quite a while, certainly more than two hours, I became aware from the movement of chairs within that it was about to break up. I had been sitting on the top step of the porch, writing in my field note-book, but I closed it at once, and, stepping back on the porch, leaned against the railing nearly opposite and to the left of the door, and expectantly waited. As I did so the inner door slowly opened, and General Lee stood before me. As he paused for a few seconds, framed in by the doorway, ere he slowly and deliberately stepped out upon the porch, I took my first and last look at the great Confederate chieftain. This is what I saw: A finely formed man, apparently about sixty years of age, well above the average height, with a clear, ruddy complexion—just then suffused by a deep-crimson flush that, rising from his neck, overspread his face and even slightly tinged his broad forehead, which, bronzed where it had been exposed to the weather, was clear and beautifully white where it had been shielded by his hat—deep-brown eyes, a firm but well-shaped Roman nose, abundant gray hair, silky and fine in texture, with a full gray beard and mustache, neatly trimmed and not over-long, but which, nevertheless, almost completely concealed his mouth. A splendid uniform of Confederate gray cloth, that had evidently seen but little service, was closely buttoned about him and fitted him to perfection. An exquisitely mounted sword, attached to a gold-embroidered Russia-leather belt, trailed loosely on the floor at his side, and in his right hand he carried a broad-brimmed, soft, gray felt hat, encircled by a golden cord, while in his left he held a pair of buckskin gauntlets. Booted and spurred, still vigorous and erect, he stood bareheaded, looking out of the open doorway, sad-faced and weary—a soldier and a gentleman, bearing himself in defeat with an all-unconscious dignity that sat well upon him.
The moment the open door revealed the Confederate commander, each officer present sprang to his feet, and as General Lee stepped out onto the porch every hand was raised in military salute. Placing his hat on his head, he mechanically but courteously returned it, and slowly crossed the porch to the head of the steps leading down to the yard, meanwhile keeping his eyes intently fixed in the direction of the little valley over beyond the Court-house in which his army lay. Here he paused and slowly drew on his gauntlets, smiting his gloved hands into each other several times after doing so, evidently utterly oblivious of his surroundings. Then, apparently recalling his thoughts, he glanced deliberately right and left, and, not seeing his horse, he called, in a hoarse, half-choked voice, “Orderly! Orderly!”
“Here, General, here!” was the quick response. The alert young soldier was holding the general’s horse near the side of the house. He had taken out the bit, slipped the bridle over the horse’s neck, and the wiry gray was eagerly grazing on the fresh young grass about him.
Descending the steps, the general passed to the left of the house and stood in front of his horse’s head while he was being bridled. As the orderly was buckling the throat-latch, the general reached up and drew the fore-lock out from under the brow-band, parted and smoothed it, and then gently patted the gray charger’s forehead in an absent-minded way, as one who loves horses but whose thoughts are far away might all unwittingly do. Then, as the orderly stepped aside, he caught up the bridle-reins in his left hand, and, seizing the pommel of the saddle with the same hand, he caught up the slack of the reins in his right hand, and placing it on the cantle he put his foot in the stirrup and swung himself slowly and wearily, but nevertheless firmly, into the saddle (the old dragoon mount), letting his right hand rest for an instant or two on the pommel as he settled into his seat, and as he did so there broke unguardedly from his lips a long, low, deep sigh, almost a groan in its intensity, while the flush on his neck and face seemed, if possible, to take on a little deeper hue.