The Civil War was entering its fifth year. The most punishing conflict ever fought on American soil was coming to an end. Generals Grant and Lee agreed to convene at the home of Wilmer McLean at Appomattox Court House to stop the fighting between their two armies. “There is nothing left for me to do but to go and see General Grant,” he told his staff that morning, “and I would rather die a thousand deaths.” Messengers, racing between the lines, carried communiques between the two camps, to halt the fighting and arrange a meeting. Lee and his men were famished, exhausted and surrounded. Grant, had relentlessly pursued the Confederate troops-this time, there would be no possible escape. The Union army, led by General Ulysses S.
The South’s Army of Northern Virginia was in its final hours. He made his way to General George Armstrong Custer, who sent the rider back to his superiors with the following reply: “We will listen to no terms but that of unconditional surrender.” Sims, carried a message requesting a suspension of hostilities to allow negotiations of surrender to take place. Lee and John Gordon, the rider, Captain R. One-hundred-and-fifty years ago, on April 9, 1865, a lone Confederate horseman violently waving a white towel as a flag of truce galloped up to the men of the 118th Pennsylvania Infantry near Appomattox Court House and asked for directions to the headquarters of Major General Philip Sheridan.
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