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THE SURRENDER OF LEE TO GRANT.-- The surrender of General Lee was made at the house of a farmer named McLean, in Appomattox village, that house having been selected by General Lee himself at General Grant's request for the interview. General Grant went thither, and was met by General Lee on the threshold. The two went into the parlor of the house, a small room, containing little furnishing but a table and several chairs. About twenty Union officers besides General Grant were present, among them the members of the General's staff. The only Confederate officer with General Lee was Colonel Marshall, who acted as his secretary. General Lee, as well as his aid, was in full uniform, and wore a burnished sword which was given him by the State of Virginia; General Grant was in plain uniform, without a sword.
After a brief conversation, relative to the meeting of the two generals while soldiers in Mexico, General Lee adverted at once to the object of the interview by asking on what terms the surrender of his army would be received. General Grant replied that officers and men must become prisoners of war, giving up of course all munitions, weapons and supplies, but that a parole would be accepted. General Lee then requested that the terms should be put in writing, that he might
sign them. General Badeau says that while General Grant was writing the conditions of surrender he chanced to look up and his eye caught the glitter of General Lee's sword, and that this sight induced him to insert the provision that the "officers should be allowed to retain their side-arms, horses and personal property." This historian thinks that General Lee fully expected to give up his sword, and that General
Grant omitted this from the terms of surrender out of consideration for the feelings of a soldier. Badeau says that General Lee was evidently much touched by the clemency of his adversary in this regard. The Confederate chief now wrote his acceptance of the terms offered and signed them. He further requested that the cavalry and artillery soldiers might be allowed to retain their horses as well as the officers, to which General Grant consented, and asked that a supply train left at Danville might be allowed to pass on, as his soldiers were without food. The reply of General Grant to this was an order that 25,000 rations should be immediately issued from the commissariat of the National army to the Army of Northern Virginia.
The formal papers were now drawn up and signed, and the interview which ended one of the greatest wars of modern times was over. |
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| Col. Sam Colt -- the man has nice pistols. sunday, a Colt girl all the way |
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I didn't surrender either but theygot my horse and made him surrender, they got him pulling a plow up in Kansas I bet. One of my favorite movies T-man |
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Sunday Pull Remington off the internet. Better made weapon, with a top strap over the cylinder. Enabled you to use a heavier powder load. Contrary to Henry Ford, it is in fact Colt who invented mass production at his Hartford works, so spare parts could be purchased at gunsmiths world-wide, not made to order like the superior British Adams and Deane Adams products had to be. Peter |
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Sunday Note Note bored out cylinder for metallic cartridges, and top strap. Cheers Peter  |
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I once met Len Lesser who played the part of Abe in "The Outlaw Josey Wales". It was a small part, but somewhat significant in the graphic manner in which Josey Wales spit tobacco on his forehead after he shot him dead (of course, that's after Abe tried to capture Josey for the reward money). In real life, Len Lesser and Clint Eastwood are good friends. Clint has always cast his movies in that manner. It's who you know.
I met Mr. Lesser at a cast party of a production of Shakespeare's "King Lear" (my brother had a small part in that show) in which Len played the part of the Fool. If you know that play, you know that the Fool actually has the most demanding part, and ironically one of the few voices of sanity in the play. Len played the part great. For an actor that made his movie career out of bit parts, he really was very talented. |
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Flashman, thanks for those pictures. I'm still trying to digest what it all means about the top strap and bored out cylinder. I'm sure if I do some comparisons I'll get it. sunday |
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Len Lesser. The face we've seen a thousand times and could never put a name to it. Thanks, bowlegged. I checked Mr. Lesser out on the internet and definitely recall many of the TV episodes he was in. sunday |
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Sunday Good, the pictures haven't come through on my PC. In the old days, say 1836-66, a revolver was loaded intoa chamber in the cylinder from the front. 5-6 chambers to a cylinder. Powder was dropped in, then a wad, then the bullet or ball, and the lot rammed together by the hinged rod you see on the |RHS of the barrel. A percussion cap is put onto the cone you see protruding above the back of the cylinder. The hammer hits that, and the flame of the cap detonates the charge. When the cartridge case was developed with integral percussion cap now re-named the primer, logically, the case was strong enough to hold the explosive force so you didn't need a back to the cylinder chamber. You just pushed the cartridge case and protruding bullet into the chamber, and then closed a "gate" to stop them falling out. All clesrly visible in my picture. However, a Rollin White obtained the patent for the bored out cartridge case (for a totally different application) and vigorously defended this patent nearly bankrupting himself in the process. So the development of the revolver as we know it was delayed during the time you needed it the most, the Civil War and the opening up of the West. A fascinating story, to me. Peter |
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Sunday "Top strap" is what PBA allows to slip alluringly over his smooth white right shoulder to let the boys know he's in town. It's also the part of the frame which goes over the cylinder of a revolver. Colt did not have them on his percussion revolvers, which unfortunately allowed the weapon to flex a micrscopic amount on firing and could alter your point of aim by say 2-3 inches at 25 yards. see your engravings post #8. The payoff was to enable a pre-loaded cylinder to be swapped quickly with an empty one. (Which you never see being done in the films) Remington and others preferred the "stiffness" and therefore extra accuracy of a "top strap" design. So does PBA Cheers Peter |
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Flash, Billy was never one of the raiders bro, but the James's, Miller's, and Younger's where bro. The most interestin' character of the lot durin' the War of Northern Agression was Bloody Bill Anderson, who was said at one time happened to come across a lot of Yanks and after shootin' them had them beheaded. Placin' the heads in various different positions...like on the lap and puttin' a different head on a Yank. Then took him some photo's. Of course this did not go over very well and the US government placed a bounty on his head. The other names I am sure yer famliar with since they formed the infamous James, Younger gang and relieved many a train, bank and other things of the burden of havin' to count there money. A good movie that has the afore mentioned folk in it is the Long Rider's. |
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Hello Normal I'll never know why, but the Jameses favoured Schofield Smith and Wessons. OK, fast reloading with the top break action, but had to have its own weak proprietary round to function. Modern Uberti replicas are much more powerful .  It took the British to make a proper powerful top-break revolver, the .455 Webley. But then the British always have been superior gunsmiths. Cheers Peter |
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Flashman, your picture isn't coming through on my pc. This is a picture of the Smith & Wesson top break single action. I think this is the pistol type that was also used by "that dirty little coward who shot Mr. Howard and laid poor Jesse in his grave..." sunday |
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Flash, now how rude is that bro to knock American firearms. When the US, has gone to such great lenghts and expense to ensure the third world is filled with them. |
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There was not much in the way of rations for the Rebs to surrender....Since for the last preceedin' weeks for the end of the war the normal foot solider hadn't much to eat and many of the soliders would go through the horse manure. To look for undigested corn kernals so that they could help aleave some of the hunger pains that they where endurin'. |
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Normal I still think the Soviets have given the 3rd World a lot more. Let's face it, the AK47 and RPKs are a lot simpler than the M16, and the M60 needs a proper barrel change. Soviets used to make their mortars 1 mm larger bore than ours, so they could use (inaccurately) our ammunition.Their principle used to be weapons for food, for example giving Cuba a nice fleet of PT 76 tanks and taking all their sugar. Giving Nigeria Gaz jeeps in exchange for their cocoa. India gets whatever it want in exchange for hard currency, because we in the West give India handouts whenever they INVENT a food shortage. Peter |
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