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America's Birth at Appomattox

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America's Birth at Appomattox Article 36 America’s Birth At Appomattox Anne Wortham It would of course be easy to make too much of the gen- LINCOLN’S ATTITUDE eral air of reconciliation.… And yet by any standard this was an almost unbelievable way to end a civil war, We are not enemies, but friends.… Though passion may which by all tradition is the worst kind of war there is.1 have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The —Bruce Catton mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle- field, and patriot grave, to every living heart, and hearth- stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of On April 9, 1865, eighty-nine years after the Continental the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by Congress declared the independence of “thirteen united the better angels of our nature. —Abraham Lincoln States of America,” the United States of America was born Reconciliation was an explicit policy goal of Abraham Lin- at the residence of farmer Wilmer McLean in the hamlet of coln’s, which he made clear to Generals Grant and Sherman and Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia. Civil War historian Adm. David Dixon Porter in a conference aboard the River James Robertson has said, “Lee signed not so much terms of Queen at City Point, Virginia, after his visit to the front on March surrender as he did the birth certificate of a nation—the Unit- 27, 1865. Lincoln knew that unless “the better angels of our na- ed States—and the country was born in that moment.”2 An ture” could be asserted by unambiguous action at war’s end, there American nationality in the sense of a general feeling of be- was no hope for the new birth of freedom and the national com- ing American above all else did not yet exist when Grant and munity he believed was possible. The problem for Lincoln was Lee put their names to the surrender document. But there how to simultaneously end the war and win the peace. As Bruce were at work nineteenth-century values, ideas, and attitudes Catton puts it, he argued that the Union’s aim should be not so that transcended sectional loyalties, that remained intact much to subdue the Confederacy as to checkmate those forces of throughout the war, and made possible the birth of the United malice and rancor that could jeopardize peace. For if the North States as a nation. won the war and lost the peace, there would be no way to realize I will look at the function of friendship, battlefield com- his hope that “the whole country, North and South together, radeship and courtesy, and shared nationality in that pro- [would] ultimately find in reunion and freedom the values that cess; and argue that these qualities of association—as well would justify four terrible years of war.”3 as the high value the combatants placed on courage, duty, honor, and discipline—enabled the Federals and Confeder- In the only existing documentation of the meeting, Admiral ates to achieve what Robert Penn Warren called “reconcil- Porter wrote: iation by human recognition.” I intend to show how My opinion is that Mr. Lincoln came down to City Point reconciliation was played out in numerous meetings be- with the most liberal views toward the rebels. He felt con- tween Union and Confederate officers and soldiers at Ap- fident that we would be successful, and was willing that the pomattox between April 9, 1865, when Lee surrendered, enemy should capitulate on the most favorable terms.… and April 12, when the Confederates stacked their arms, He wanted peace on almost any terms.… His heart was folded their flags, and were paroled. tenderness throughout, and, as long as the rebels laid down their arms, he did not care how it was done.4 1 Article 36. America’s Birth At Appomattox Lincoln knew that the peace and reconciliation he envisioned There were mutual introductions and shaking of hands, would not stand a chance without generous surrender terms. He and soon was passed about some whiskey (General expected Grant, “the remorseless killer,” and Sherman, “de- [Romeyn] Ayres furnished the whiskey and he alleges it struction’s own self,” to “fight without mercy as long as there was a first class article) and mutual healths were drank must be fighting, but when the fighting stopped they [must] try and altogether it was a strange grouping. The rebel of- to turn old enemies into friends.” ficers were all elegantly dressed in full uniform. Gradu- ally the area of the conference widened. From the steps Lincoln knew his fellow citizens, and he was the conferring party got into the street, and before it closed some were seated on the steps, and others, for confident that while they were politically lack of more comfortable accommodations, chatted co- disunited, the raw material of reconciliation sily, seated on a contiguous fence.6 resided in their hearts. Gen. Joshua Chamberlain overheard two West Point class- mates who had been combatants for four years renewing an old acquaintance. “Well Billy, old boy, how goes it?” the Union of- But could reconciliation be coaxed out of defeat? There were ficer said. “Bad, bad, Charlie, bad I can tell you; but have you reasons to think it possible. Lincoln knew his fellow citizens, and got any whiskey?”7 he was confident that while they were politically disunited, the raw material of reconciliation resided in their hearts. Indeed, friendli- ness and respect were present within the armies, and there was now When we consider the pain, suffering, less bitterness between them than when the war began. Yet another and death these men had inflicted upon resource was the extraordinary resilience of the friendships be- tween the former West Pointers leading those armies. Finally, one another and their comrades, how are whether he knew it or not, but must have sensed, Lincoln had a we to explain their apparent lack of most reliable resource in the antisecessionist gray commander him- resentment and bitterness? self, Robert E. Lee—but not until he was defeated. When we consider the pain, suffering, and death these men WEST POINT 1: A CHEERFUL had inflicted upon one another and their comrades, how are we to explain their apparent lack of resentment and bitterness? COLLOQUY How could one so easily drink of the cup of fraternity with If one would have a friend, one must be willing to wage someone who has been shooting at him and his comrades—and war for him: and in order to wage war, one must be ca- sometimes hitting the mark—for four years? Can vanquished pable of being an enemy.… In one’s friend, one shall and victor really be friends? find one’s best enemy. —Frederich Nietzsche Well, yes—if the fellow who had been shooting at you was a friend before he was your enemy, and if he was bound to you by that precious ethos called the “spirit of West Point.” Vindictive- “The soldiers did not need to be told that it would be well to ness was not the order of the day for these men. They just make peace mean comradeship. All they needed was to see some- wanted it over. Indeed, two months before, on February 25, body try it,” writes Catton. 5 Well, on Palm Sunday, April 9, 1865, Union Gen. Edward Ord met under a flag of truce with his there were plenty of occasions to see the vanquished and the victo- former classmate, Confederate Gen. James Longstreet, and dis- rious extend the hand of friendship. On the morning of that dramat- cussed the possibility of Lee and Grant declaring peace on the ic day, white flags of truce were held aloft as messengers rode field. Now, as the officers waited for Grant and Lee, John between the lines, and a cease-fire was in place until the anticipated Gibbon, a North Carolinian whose three brothers fought for the surrender meeting between Grant and Lee. By late morning the Confederacy, proposed that if Grant and Lee couldn’t come to contending armies stood on either side of the town, with their pick- terms and stop the fighting, they should order their soldiers to et lines out, their guns silent, nervously contemplating the meaning fire only blank cartridges to prevent further bloodshed. By of surrender and ever alert for the resumption of hostile fire. But noon, when Grant still had not appeared, the West Pointers rode gathered on the steps of the Appomattox Courthouse, awaiting the back to their respective lines, all hoping, as Gibbon said, “that arrival of the two commanding generals, was a curious group of there would be no further necessity for bloodshed.” Union and Confederate generals, most of them West Point gradu- ates, and many of them from the same graduating classes. As historian Frank Cauble points out, because of the more CONDITIONAL SURRENDER significant surrender meeting that everyone was anticipating, this earlier conference of officers has been largely overlooked Another year would go by before President Andrew Johnson, and seldom mentioned in Civil War histories. However, the on April 2, 1866, proclaimed “that the insurrection… is at an sight of these former combatants was “a singular spectacle,” end and is henceforth to be so regarded.” But Grant and Lee’s wrote New York reporter L.A. Hendrick. task of reconciliation could not wait for the U.S. government’s 2 ANNUAL EDITIONS official certification of the end of the war. They knew it had to Lee asked that those of the enlisted men who owned their begin with the surrender terms themselves.
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