by Greg Mayer

Yesterday was the 150th anniversary of the surrender to General Ulysses Grant by General Robert E. Lee of the Army of Northern Virginia. Although some Confederate forces did not surrender for a few more weeks, Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Virginia, effectively ended the American Civil War.

There have been various commemorations of the Civil War’s sesquicentennial, including events and publications by the National Park Service, and a four year long series of articles by the New York Times, Disunion, which followed the war on a chronological basis. I think this attention has had very salutary and clarifying effects, especially the republication of the secession ordinances passed by the legislatures of the Confederate states. Although there is rich historical nuance and context in the development of regional differences and antagonism in ante bellum America, the ordinances make plain the cause of the war. As Apu put it, “Slavery it is, sir.”

I had noticed some years ago that in many photographs of Grant’s staff, one of his officers was an American Indian. I looked into this, and found that he was a Seneca from upstate New York: Ely Samuel Parker (Seneca: Hasanowanda).

Parker, a lawyer, engineer, and sachem, met Grant before the war in Galena, Illinois, where Parker was working as an engineer for the U.S. Treasury Department. When war broke out, Parker sought to join the Army, but his obligations to the Treasury, and prejudice against Indians, delayed his joining until 1863, when he was commissioned as a captain of engineers. He soon found his way to his old friend Grant’s staff, with whom he served till the end of the war, and later in Grant’s presidential administration. At Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox, it was Parker who wrote up the formal copy of the surrender terms that was signed by Grant and Lee.

In the picture above, the illustrator Tom Lovell puts Parker standing at the right (with George Armstrong Custer standing behind him, and, I think, Phil Sheridan at the far left of the group of Union officers!). More contemporary images usually show Parker seated. Parker’s own account of his meeting with Lee is classic. Grant introduced Lee to his officers, coming in due course to Parker. Parker later wrote (A.C. Parker, 1919, p. 133):

After Lee had stared at me for a moment, he extended his hand and said, “I am glad to see one real American here.” I shook his hand and said, “We are all Americans.”

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Parker, A.C. 1919. Last Grand Sachem of the Iroquois and General Grant’s Military Secretary. Buffalo Historical Society, Buffalo, New York. (online)

Update. I should have posted this yesterday! The signing in the parlor occurred on April 9th. Lee and Grant met again on the 10th, and the formal ceremony of surrender was on April 12th, but the iconic meeting depicted in myriad illustrations, and the cessation of fighting, occurred on the 9th. Mea culpa!