We look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Next, Elizabeth Varon recalls robert e. Lees surrender to the ulysses s. Grant led union forces said the mclean house on october 9th 101865. This is about 45 minutes. [applause] thank you so much for that very, very kind introduction. Its a pleasure to be here. Property surrendered u. S. Grant in 1865 which is for most americans a familiar tableau. The two men met your mama Central Virginia at appomattox courthouse. Lee wore a fine dress uniform and vow gentility of the southeasterly. Create test crack early and represented the hardscrabble farmers and wage earners had molded in to so formidable a fighting machine. After awkwardly exchanging pleasantries about service in the mexican war, the two men agree to the surrender terms and ended the civil war. In essence, grants term salve for the army of north virginia on there arent. The promise that they would never again take up arms against the United States. Great magnanimity in this relates to the preservation of the labor united the north and south that prepared the way for americas emergence as a world power. This is an edifying story, a comforting one diecast healing it transcends politics. Today ill tell you an altogether different mathematic story and suggested what happened here on april 9th 1865 is even more significant and fascinating than weve realized. The surrender was inherently political moment i would set the terms of an unfolding debate about the meetings that the war. Leeann grant, consummate leaders both do this in each man move to stake out a position. For the come of surrender was the negotiation of which he secured honorable terms for his blameless man in the peace is contingent on the norths Good Behavior. The Union Victory in the sizes one overrated. Entrance fee the surrender was sent negotiation. He could be immersed while precisely because he went badly utterly powerless and discredit to his cause. Grants terms were designed to affect confederates submission and atonement. For a grant from the Union Victory was spread over rob and peace is contingent on the souths Good Behavior. Competing granted they did not crack the surrender terms in isolation it for the appomattox drama unfolded, countrymen and women would crowd the scene and invest with aspirations and dreams and the students included the dream of freedom itself. In the eyes of africanamerican soldiers and former slaves, more than the union had been vindicated that april day. The surrender was for them. A freedom day, the moment the promise of emancipation was finally fulfilled. Ill propose three distinct understandings is a moment of rest duration. This is the confederate interpretation of vindication liberation took shape within the contending armies on april 9, 1865. Ill suggested the debates over the terms reveal not only the depth of the bitterness between the earth and the vanquished, but deep divisions within each Society North and south. So well begin with the confederate interpretation. On april 81865 to retrieve bad to grant in response to green suggestion that the confederate cause is hopeless in that time had come to capitulate. Lee wrote, to be frank i do not think the emergency has arisen for the surrendered his army but as the restoration of peace should be the sole object of a desire to know whether proposals would lead to the end. I cannot meet you with a view to the surrender of Northern Virginia. As far as the restoration of peace, i should be pleased to meet you. Using the word restoration price, lee began to elaborate position of an honorable peace. What did he mean by restoration . Is a favorite theme of the northern peace democrats who deplored the lincoln administrations conduct of the work, war, particularly i think the man patient and sought to return the union to the way it was the third 1864 campaign slogan. We had hoped in vain the confederate battlefield victories with all the chorus of northern dissent and bring the north to the negotiating table. Please on understanding the distinct from that of the northern democrat and it was rooted in his family culture and that of his native virginia. Like many other virginians of his generation, elite bloodlines , leave the state for days of the earlier public. Neither states on the stick it for granted to be my leader in felt a proprietary pride in the union. For lee, an honorable peace would restore for the south of prosperity influence of his words. He associated with the case of an imagined past before the nation had drifted away from the principles of the virginia founders. From april 1865 on, restoration would be these political keyword and we see a crop up again and again and again and his postwar correspondent. For example, six months after the surrender, he wrote to Matthew Fontaine maury, as long as virtue is dominant, so long as the happiness of the people secure. And ever merciful guys give us from destruction and restores to the bright hopes and prospects of the past. This is a fundamentally backward looking view of the peace. These hopes were restoration or premise not only a nostalgic, but the case this time he was lameness. He elaborated the case in april 10 in his farewell address under the sky by charles marshall. It began after four years of arduous service marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude the army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to go to overwhelming recent resources, unquote. Confederate church amid steadfast in the continued in contrast satisfaction even in this bitter hour from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed. Please address took on an iconic status. It had profound emotional resonance to his starting unexhausted church. The yankee army seemed endless and income are seen. Billys farewell address had layers of meaning and deep tangled roots. For white southerners, the reference to overwhelming numbers and resource this is a sort of code in the context of proslavery ideology of the creed members conjured up a Northern Army of mercenaries, seducer coerced into service and having no real taken the fight. Resources conjured up images of northern factories and cities in which it exploited underclass is turned Material Support at the behest of rapacious capitalists. Succession is sensing the burgeoning love the population of the north doesnt type of northern society, and social instability and obsession at the bottom line. The addresses reference to the courage and fortitude of the confederate troops as part of parcel of the same in dayton and of the north. Defenders of the southern way of life had made a staple of the claim that southern men accustomed to mastery over always her readers are nursed at the northern. Lee was well aware of this ideological freight. In a planet union troops had not been equal to the confederate once the essential attributes of and had, his farewell address made a political statement. By denying legitimacy of the north military vic drake, confederates could tonight and with the right to impose its political will on the defeated south. Here at appomattox, we moved on a second front to cast the surrender terms in the best possible light, hoping their paroles could confer a measure of immunity from reprisals at the hands of the federal, lee requested of grant at their april 10 made in on horseback that each individual confederate be issued a printed Certificate Signed by a Union Officer is proof that the soldier came under the settlement of april 9. Grant readily assented to this request in keeping with the language of the surrender terms match that of the soldier observed the force for he resided, he would not be disturbed. He then imagines the certificates would remind confederates of the obligations attendant upon their status as paroled prisoners of war. But the confederates emphasize the will not be disturbed cause in their eyes from the paroles represented the promise that honorable men would not be treated dishonorably. In the confederate interpretation from the surrender terms impose conditions on the north. April 20191865 interview with the new york herald, they want arbitrary urban dig ever read full apologies were adopted by the Republican Administration from the southerners would the terms reached that would renew the fight. 10 months later testifying before congressional committee, investigating ways of antiblack violence, they defended the policies of andy johnson from which id write exconfederates back to power and again cautioned the north must be restrained and conservative in its approach to reunion or that was the best way for northerners to retain the good opinion of the south. The main point here is this. Lee has a reputation in the modern day for having counseled resignation and deceit. But for confederates of the posts were. Camellias 90s humblest admission. Instead he was the symbol of an out pride and measured defiance. Confederate civilians imagine the very surrender seem as an in the to korea. A revealing the fanciful report on the conference at the mclean house circulated through confederate newspapers immediately to 65 in which lee offers gripped his sword, but greed refuses to take it. According to the newspaper account cummock returned to his generally, keep that sort. You have not been wiped, but overpowered and i cannot receive it as a token of surrender from so brave a man, a quote. Of course, grant never said such things but it assigns the overwrite interpretation. Confederates on the holmes wrote of the surrender seem that Union Officers cheered poorly as they left the mclean house and the rankandfile yankee dared not utter a single insulting word to the defeated rebels. Why were the yankees the victors . Aggressively submissive, they fear the line even ashamed. To your door, confederates not only cannot get him to the overwhelming recent resources interpretation of their defeat, but the sentiments of the address, they invoke the appomattox terms and particularly the will not be disturbed cause is issued against social change and a weapon of them in battle over black civil rights. Republican efforts to get the repeople measure of equality and opportunity and protection were met by confederate protest is such a radical agenda was a betrayal of the appomattox term. The prospect of black citizenship is one virginia newspaper put it, the less disturbed side. In short, confederates believed that lee had drawn the line in the sand at appomattox. North carolina poet put it most distinctly. Urgent southerners to model Good Behavior she wrote in the summer of 1866 that lee had quote not stoop to scrimmaged crowd had one breath to surrender to create. Confederates would observe the parole terms, but she insisted an honorable enemy should not desire. It is idle to attempt to force the confederates juice day they were wrong. From the start, this view, this view of things as are some of out of are some of the object of faith in her circle in the vast majority of Union Soldiers and civilians. It is precisely the admission of wrongdoing in a change of heart that grants offered his defeated those. Please rhetoric of restoration help no charm to the new general. Grant expressing his support for lincoln in 1864 election has explicitly rejected the equation at peace with restoration of a turning back the clock. He associated such language with defeatism that the democrats in a specter is great but it is a restoration to the south of slaves 30 free. Grant also rejected the notion he had been anything negotiated with lee at appomattox. He had all the cars on april 9, 1865. Green felt demeaning to to be unmistakable. Hero, never claim to the protein of these prisoners any Political Rights whatsoever. I thought that was the matter with congress over which i have no control. The general chief Commanding Army i had to read to stipulate to surrender in terms which the confederate bias. These terms rested on military calculations. Great post on april 9, 1865 that should be surrender. Other rebel armies would surrender and grandpa to be the thus avoid bushwhacking a continuation of the war. In the interpretation, grants terms did not set the men free pic technically paroled bubbles were prisoners of war whose freedom is entirely contingent on their Good Behavior. The surrender was her creative vindication on many levels. Restoration is least keyword of vindication. He was keenly aware of the fact that over the course of the word many northerners in the union army and Government Press had attributed to the formidable the superhuman qualities as graham put it in his memoirs. Written while long the rebel chief was mortal and the surrender vindicated. That knowledge. Moreover, grant had long stood by the charge leveled by the antiwar copperhead preston North Victory was a merciless butchery. Greenfeld undisguised contempt for the stayathome traders and antiwar copperhead. Now if defeat in france showed lenience that mantle of butcher would fall from credentialed or so last. More than anything the surrender criticizes the triumph of a just cause coming in because of the union. Do you use triumph vindicated to rule by majority. The founders believed in a perpetual union. The capacity of citizen soldiers represent a democracy to the conscripts and dukes of an autocratic society. The downfall of the confederacy on bird in the south slavery, and institution imports while civilized people not brought up under it as graham put it. Now the way was open for the unions eat those of moral and material progress and the white southerners to the distant brought from serb serbians slaveholding class how great saw it. Grievously the surrender terms what he said the political conversion of the defeated confederate to a creed of democratic selfgovernment of freedom. Great did not believe lee and his men to be blameless. He describes the session is a sin in a crime, but he believed for everything there must be achieved atonement and his mercy again was designed to affect that atonement. Grant made no concession to the confederates are copperhead fitness terms. His generosity was the generosity of a conqueror whose the jury was total. Grimsby of the surrenders in triumph of right over wrong are just as resident and enduring among northerners as lees interpretation did among southerners. Among the northerners who embrace grants policy of magnanimity were abolitionists of radical republicans, part of the argument of my book as americans across a spectrum embraced magnanimity, but investors very different kind of meanings. He was charged at the time they confederates and copperhead sabbaticals, abolitionist of radical republicans were intent on vengeance against the south. The historical record suggests otherwise. In the eyes of abolitionist such as the influential gold editor, magnanimity with the means to achieve a purpose namely the ascent of the south to emancipation. Reporters saw magnanimity as an emblem of their moral authority. Superb disc really put the civilization based on three labors of a higher and more humane type are not based on slavery. Really continued, i want as many rebels is possible to live to see the south rejuvenated and transferred by the influence of free labor. But fitter fate for the likes of leap into bear witness to the unfolding social revolution. This is how greeley saw things here at ms since coming northerners who embrace grants term set to the south, we dont want to inflict punishment. We want you to change in confederates responded to demands for change with a form of punishment. This contest over the surrenders meany did not simply pick this up again the north or even the confederacy against the union. Instead, it pitted those who have a thorough transformation of the south against those who rejected such transformation. Here we have the theme of divisions within each side. The northsouth conservatives, peace democrats copperheads were loathed for their political rival of the Republican Party of lincoln to treat the surrenders of vindication and mandate. These democrats rallied behind the confederate interpretation of appomattox. In their valor, endurance and skill to copperhead neoprobe insisted southerners were equal to the north to the confederacy was subdued by overwhelming numbers. Heres lees interpretation lock stock and barrel. The south to is divided. By southern unionists opposed confederacy during the war rally behind grants interpretation and reveled in the fact that the noble grant and his army had broadly sushil. Surrender was a vindication for white southerners. Americans held markie maher asserted more fervently that the surrender margin of error than africanamericans. Vivendi victory vindicated the cause of black freedom and racial justice. At appomattox, both liberators had liberated. The last clash of granted me across the virginia countryside from petersburg to appomattox, my stomach tried on april 9 to break free of a federal trap only to find last escape route blocked by black soldiers and the six regiments of the United States colored troops with one another in the wings. When they heard of lees capitulation come in black troops knew no bounds. They danced and sang and embraced each other with exuberant joy. The black regiments at appomattox numbering 2000 men in all for a microcosm of black life in america. They included xbase train at kentuckys camp dawson and free blacks at philadelphias camp william penn. Included men who became race leaders in the postwar era searches are not destroying destroyed George Washington williams of the baptist editor William Demint does the journalistic mentor to none other than ip laws. Regardless of their background, the presence of the battlefield with a felt the culmination of a long struggle. If you know, federal or returned with black volunteers, claiming African American men did not possess attributes of patriotism and courage and kept it the worst difficult moment. When you stt regiments got the chance to fight, they proved their mettle with dozens of engagements. The u. S. E. T. A bad appomattox seemed considerable action. Dh survived a bloody initiation into combat in florida february february 1860 for joining the granting warfare of the Overlan