Lee remarked again that this would have a happy effect.
He then sat down and wrote out the following letter:
HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA, April 9, 1865.
GENERAL:--I received your letter of this date containing the terms of
the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia as proposed by you. As
they are substantially the same as those expressed in your letter of the
8th inst., they are accepted. I will proceed to designate the proper
officers to carry the stipulations into effect.
R. E. LEE, General. LIEUT.-GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
While duplicates of the two letters were being made, the Union generals
present were severally presented to General Lee.
The much talked of surrendering of Lee's sword and my handing it back,
this and much more that has been said about it is the purest romance.
The word sword or side arms was not mentioned by either of us until I
wrote it in the terms. There was no premeditation, and it did not occur
to me until the moment I wrote it down. If I had happened to omit it,
and General Lee had called my attention to it, I should have put it in
the terms precisely as I acceded to the provision about the soldiers
retaining their horses.
General Lee, after all was completed and before taking his leave,
remarked that his army was in a very bad condition for want of food, and
that they were without forage; that his men had been living for some
days on parched corn exclusively, and that he would have to ask me for
rations and forage.
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