Lee surrendered in his house. Then he went broke
Robert E. Lee surrendered his army in Wilmer McLean's parlor on 9 April 1865. That afternoon is only part of McLean's story.
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Sources
Principal historical sources
- Frank P. Cauble, Biography of Wilmer McLean (National Park Service, 1969).
- npshistory.com/publications/apco/mclean-bio.pdf
- Sylvanus Cadwallader's dispatch, Appomattox Court House, 9 April 1865, published in the New York Herald, 14 April 1865, p. 5.
- loc.gov/resource/sn83030313/1865-04-14/ed-1/?sp=5
- Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, vol. 2, chapter LXVII.
- Charles Marshall, An Aide-de-Camp of Lee, chapter XII.
- Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant (1897 text; scanned 1907 edition), pp. 470-487; compared with his 1887 account in Battles and Leaders, vol. 4, pp. 743-744.
- archive.org/details/campaigningwithg00portuoft
- Edward Porter Alexander's manuscript recollections as quoted by Cauble, and “Lee at Appomattox,” Century (April 1902), p. 931.
- archive.org/details/sim_century-illustrated-monthly-magazine_1902-04_63_6
- National Park Service, McLean House, Enslaved Families of the McLean Household, and McLean House Timeline.
- nps.gov/apco/upload/Jan25McLean-House-timeline.pdf
- Evening Star, 17 November 1893, p. 1; 4 January 1948, p. A-7; 17 April 1950, p. A-2.
- loc.gov/resource/sn83045462/1948-01-04/ed-1/?sp=7
- loc.gov/resource/sn83045462/1950-04-17/ed-1/?sp=2
Image and film credits
- Historical photographs, maps, drawings and newspapers: Library of Congress; National Archives; National Park Service; New York Public Library; Missouri History Museum; public-domain books via Internet Archive. McLean house photographs by Timothy H. O'Sullivan; Lee leaving by Alfred R. Waud. The surrender-room lithograph is Major & Knapp's 1867 print. Later house images are dated on screen.
- Grant's table and two chairs: Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Gift of Elizabeth B. Custer, CC0.
- americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_515979
- Lee's table: Chicago History Museum, ICHi-073817, accession 1920.750. © 2015 Chicago Historical Society.
- images.chicagohistory.org/asset/7263/
- Doll: NPS Appomattox Court House NHP, APCO 4014. Horace Porter's pencil: NPS, APCO 2775.
- Grant at Cold Harbor, June 1864: Egbert Guy Fowx / Library of Congress. Bull Run, 1862: Library of Congress.
- Blackburn's Ford, 1862, and Grant with his staff at City Point, 1864: National Archives. E. P. Alexander as a colonel: via Wikimedia Commons.
- Surrender paintings: Louis Mathieu Guillaume / NPS; Thomas Nast, Peace in Union (1895). Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941: U.S. Navy, National Archives 80-G-16871.
- Marshall's page: An Aide-de-Camp of Lee (1927), p. 268, via Internet Archive. Confederate $10 note, 1864.
- McLean house today: Victoria Stauffenberg / NPS (2015).
- Slave quarters behind the McLean house: Acroterion, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
- commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Slave_quarters_Appomattox_VA1.jpg
- Bettie Love Stewart photograph: family papers of Linda Crichlow White / NPS; reproduction via Ronald Claiborne.
- ronaldclaiborne.substack.com/p/from-slavery-to-freedom-visiting
- Grave photograph: David Heiby / Gravestone Stories.
- gravestonestories.com/the-beginning-and-the-end-of-the-civil-war/
- Modern site footage: NPS Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Cultural Landscape at Appomattox Court House (2019).
- nps.gov/media/video/view.htm?id=23781677-B6FF-A00D-97826BB91DEF537E
