l Charles Marshall. A short
conversation led up to a request from Lee for the terms on which the
surrender of his army would be received. Grant briefly stated them, and
then wrote them out. Men and officers were to be paroled, and the arms,
artillery, and public property turned over to the officer appointed to
receive them.

"This," he added, "will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor
their private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will
be allowed to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by United
States authority so long as they observe their parole and the laws in
force where they may reside."

General Grant says in his "Memoirs" that up to the moment when he put
pen to paper he had not thought of a word that he should write. The
terms he had verbally proposed were soon put in writing, and there he
might have stopped. But as he wrote a feeling of sympathy for his
gallant antagonist came over him, and he added the extremely liberal
terms with which his letter closed. The sight of Lee's fine sword
suggested the paragraph allowing officers to retain their side-arms; and
he ended with a phrase he evidently had not thought of, and for which he
had no authority, which practically pardoned and amnestied every man in
Lee's army--a thing he had refused to consider the day before, and which
had been expressly forbidden him in the President's order of March 3.
Yet so great was the joy over the crowning victory, and so deep the
gratitude of the government and people to Grant and his heroic army,
that his terms were accepted as he wrote them, and his exercise of the
Executive prerogative of pardon entirely overlooked. It must be noticed
here, however, that a few days later it led the greatest of Grant's
generals into a serious error.

Lee must have read the memorandum with as much surprise as
gratification. He suggested and gained another important
concession--that those of the cavalry and artillery who owned their own
horses should be allowed to take them home to put in their crops; and
wrote a brief reply accepting the terms. He then remarked that his army
was in a starving condition, and asked Grant to provide them with
subsistence and forage; to which he at once assented, inquiring for how
many men the rations would be wanted. Lee answered, "About twenty-five
thousand"; and orders were given to issue them. The number turned out to
be even greater, the paroles signed amounting to twenty-eight