Robert e lee speech surrender
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Written by: Mackubin Owens, Foreign Policy Research Institute
By the end of this section, you will:
- Explain the various factors that contributed to the Union victory in the Civil War
Suggested Sequencing
Use this Decision Point at the end of the Civil War unit to summarize Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House.
After General Ulysses S. Grant’s successes at Vicksburg and Chattanooga, Lincoln appointed him general in chief of the armies of the United States. Grant believed that up to that point, Union armies in different theaters had “acted independently and without concert, like a balky team, no two ever pulling together.” Accordingly, his strategic plan for 1864 called for putting five Union armies into motion simultaneously against the Confederacy. While three smaller armies in peripheral theaters tied down significant Confederate forces, preventing them from shifting troops from one theater to another, the two main armies, Meade’s Army o
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April 9th, 1865, was the end of the Civil War for General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army of nordlig Virginia. For Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant and tens of thousands of Federal and Confederate troops fighting further south, the war stretched out for several more months. After Appomattox, however, only the most zealous and desperate could pretend the Union was not already victorious and the Confederacy was destined to end.
As the sun rose on April 9th in Appomattox, General Lee still clung to the belief his war was not over. 8,000 men from Maj. General John B. Gordon’s Second Corps, along with Lee’s nephew Fitzhugh Lee and what remained of the Confederate cavalry, were lined up for battle just west of the by of Appomattox Court House. Robert E. Lee hoped there was only a thin line of Union cavalry ahead of him that he could smash through, find supplies and rations, and then turn south to march to North Carolina to continue the fight. For a week Grant thwarted Lee’s p
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Lee's Farewell Address
1865 letter by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee to his troops stating his surrender to the Union
ConfederateGeneralRobert E. Lee issued his Farewell Address, also known as General Order No. 9, to his Army of Northern Virginia on April 10, 1865, the day after he surrendered to Union ArmyLieutenant GeneralUlysses S. Grant. Lee's surrender was instrumental in bringing about the end of the American Civil War. The text of the order, which was written and drafted by Col. Charles Marshall and edited and finalized by Lee, read as follows:[1]
Headquarters, Army of Northern Virginia, 10th April 1865.
General Order
No. 9
After four years of arduous service marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources.
I need not tell the survivors of so many hard fought battles, who have remained steadfast to the last, that I have consented to the result from no