It was on this day in 1865 that General Robert E. Lee and General Ulysses S. Grant met in Appomattox Court House, and Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War. The generals met at the home of Wilmer McLean.
A few years earlier, McLean had lived with his family in Manassas, Virginia, and the first major battle of Bull Run had been fought on his farm there. He moved farther south, near Appomattox Court House, to better serve the Confederate Army as a wholesale grocer. By total coincidence, Generals Lee and Grant chose Appomattox Court House to discuss the terms of surrender, and when they sent an aide ahead to ask the first citizen on the street for a house where they could talk, it happened to be Wilmer McLean, who eventually had to offer his own home. After Lee surrendered, Union officers swept through the house, determined to have a piece of history — they offered to buy everything, and what he refused to sell they just stole (many people, McLean’s family included, say they stole everything). Pieces were taken from his sofa, the cane on his chairs was cut up and parceled out, and his property was destroyed for a second time.