Terms of Surrender

Letter from Ulysses S Grant to Robert E. Lee
1865

Once General Robert E. Lee's Army had been cut off from its supplies, the Confederate Army was limping along. By the spring of 1865, Lee had no choice but to surrender his Army of Northern Virginia. This copy of Grant's letter outlining the terms of surrender was made by W. H. Atkinson, a clerk in the Adjutant General's office of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. The two commanders met at the McLean home in Appomattox Court House, Virginia. There Grant and Lee formalized and signed the surrender.

Interpretive text provided by the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History

Paper, ink
Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, NMAH 2012.0214.04