Pardoning General Lee
2011-04-11 - by
There are a lot of wonderful stories and legends about the Civil War and here’s one: In 1865 Lincoln climbed the gangplank to a warship and sailed down the Chesapeake Bay to City Point (near Petersburg) to visit General Grant and, by then, it was clear to anybody but a blind-man General Lee couldn’t hold out much longer.
Lincoln and Grant talked and strategized for four days and the day Lincoln left Grant walked with him to the end of the pier; Lincoln stopped, pursed his lips and said, You know, Grant, a President can’t make peace. Only Congress can approve a treaty. But, you know, I expect the fellow sitting in the room with General Lee, well, he’s going to have more to say about that treaty than anyone.
Grant nodded and didn’t speak then Lincoln said, If it was me I’d let ‘em up easy.
At Appomattox Grant wrote out the peace treaty – Lee’s surrender – in his own hand and what he wrote essentially said, Let’s end this war and go home and let bygones be bygones. He also wrote – in that treaty or surrender or whatever you call it – a pardon for the Confederate soldier’s he’d been fighting against for four years.
After Lincoln was killed Lee was indicted for treason in federal court in Norfolk and in Washington President Andrew Johnson boasted to Grant he was going to convict both Lee and Peter Longstreet.
Grant looked back at Johnson a minute without speaking, then said softly, Well, the day you do that I resign from the Army.
Posted in General
Pardoning General Lee
2011-04-11/
There are a lot of wonderful stories and legends about the Civil War and here’s one: In 1865 Lincoln climbed the gangplank to a warship and sailed down the Chesapeake Bay to City Point (near Petersburg) to visit General Grant and, by then, it was clear to anybody but a blind-man General Lee couldn’t hold out much longer.
Lincoln and Grant talked and strategized for four days and the day Lincoln left Grant walked with him to the end of the pier; Lincoln stopped, pursed his lips and said, You know, Grant, a President can’t make peace. Only Congress can approve a treaty. But, you know, I expect the fellow sitting in the room with General Lee, well, he’s going to have more to say about that treaty than anyone.
Grant nodded and didn’t speak then Lincoln said, If it was me I’d let ‘em up easy.
At Appomattox Grant wrote out the peace treaty – Lee’s surrender – in his own hand and what he wrote essentially said, Let’s end this war and go home and let bygones be bygones. He also wrote – in that treaty or surrender or whatever you call it – a pardon for the Confederate soldier’s he’d been fighting against for four years.
After Lincoln was killed Lee was indicted for treason in federal court in Norfolk and in Washington President Andrew Johnson boasted to Grant he was going to convict both Lee and Peter Longstreet.
Grant looked back at Johnson a minute without speaking, then said softly, Well, the day you do that I resign from the Army.
Posted in General