On April 8, 1865, General Ulysses S. Grant was having a hard night. His army had been harrying General Lees for days, and Grant knew it was only a question of time before Lee had to surrender. The people in the Virginia countryside were starving and Lees army was melting away. Just that morning, a Confederate colonel had thrown himself on Grants mercy after realizing that he was the only man in his entire regiment who had not already abandoned the cause. But while Grant had twice asked Lee to surrender, Lee still insisted his men could fight on. So Grant retired to bed in a Virginia farmhouse on the night of April 8, dirty, tired, and miserable with a migraine. He spent the night bathing my feet in hot water and mustard, and putting mustard plasters on my wrists and the back part of my neck, hoping to be cured by morning. It didnt work. When the morning came, Grant pulled on his clothes from the day before and rode out to the head of his column with his head throbbing. As he rode, an escort arrived with a note from General Lee requesting an interview for the purpose of surrendering Lees Army of Northern Virginia. When the officer reached me I was still suffering with the sick headache, Grant recalled, but the instant I saw the contents of the note I was cured. The two men met in the home of Wilmer McLean in the village of Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Lee had dressed grandly for the occasion in a brand new generals uniform carrying a dress sword; Grant wore simply the rough garb of a private with the shoulder straps of a Lieutenant General. But the images of the noble South and the humble North hid a very different reality. As soon as the papers were signed, Lee told Grant his men were starving, and asked if the Union general could provide the Confederates with rations. Grant didnt hesitate. Certainly, he responded, before asking how many men needed food. He took Lees answer-- about twenty-five thousand-- in stride, telling the general that he could have... all the provisions wanted. By spring 1865, Confederates, who had ridden off to war four years before boasting that they would beat the Norths money-grubbing shopkeepers in a single battle were broken and starving, while, backed by a booming industrial economy, the Union army could provide rations for twenty-five thousand men on a moments notice. The Civil War was won not by the dashing sons of wealthy planters, but by men like Grant, who dragged himself out of his blankets and pulled a dirty soldiers uniform over his pounding head on an April morning because he knew he had to get up and get to work.
Posted on: Wed, 09 Apr 2014 01:44:37 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015