Lee Surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Court House
Generous terms let Confederate soldiers go home with their horses and sidearms, and the main Confederate army stops fighting
Quick facts
- Location
- Appomattox Court House, Virginia
- Date
- April 9, 1865
- Union commander
- Ulysses S. Grant
- Confederate commander
- Robert E. Lee
- Paroled troops
- About 28,000
What happened
After abandoning Petersburg and Richmond on April 2-3, 1865, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia retreated west, hoping to reach supplies and link up with other Confederate forces, but Union cavalry and infantry cut off every escape route. Cornered near Appomattox Court House, Virginia, Lee agreed to meet Grant on April 9. The two generals met in the parlor of Wilmer McLean's house; Grant, still in a mud-spattered field uniform, offered terms that let Confederate officers and soldiers go home on parole rather than face imprisonment or trial for treason, so long as they did not take up arms again. Officers could keep their sidearms and personal horses, and Grant later extended the same allowance to enlisted men who owned their own horses, since Grant recognized they would need them for the spring planting. The meeting ended with a handshake around 3 p.m., and roughly 28,000 Confederate soldiers were paroled in the following days.
Why it matters
The surrender of Lee's army, the Confederacy's most important remaining military force, effectively ended the war even though smaller Confederate forces elsewhere did not surrender for several more weeks, and Grant's lenient terms set the tone for a reconciliation that avoided mass treason trials.
How we know
The National Park Service's Appomattox Court House National Historical Park account of the surrender meeting and the National Archives' text of the surrender terms document the negotiation from Grant's and Lee's own reports and the recollections of officers present in the McLean parlor.
Sources
- Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, National Park Service. The Surrender Meeting · Reputable sourcenps.gov · The domain "nps.gov" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- National Archives. Articles of Agreement Relating to the Surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia (1865) · Primary source (author-declared)archives.gov · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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