• The Ordeal of Reunion:Magnanimous Peace or Prelude to Violence at Appomattox?
• Erik J. Chaput (bio)

In the wake of the fall of the city of Richmond on April 3, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee moved southwest along the Richmond and Danville Railroad towards Lynchburg, the site of a vital rail depot, with Union forces in hot pursuit. Lee's situation was becoming desperate, with many of his men lacking basic resources, but there were no supply trains coming to aid him. On April 7, Union General Ulysses S. Grant, looking to end the bloodletting, wrote to Lee asking for his surrender. "The result of last week," referring to the chaotic flight from Richmond and the failed attack at a fortified position near Petersburg, "must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in this struggle."¹

In his response, Lee did not engage with Grant's viewpoint, but he did ask for terms. On April 9, refusing to follow suggestions from some advisors to fight on, Lee elected to sit down with Grant in the parlor of a house owned by Wilmer McLean, a retired officer in the Virginia militia. The magnanimous terms eventually offered by Grant stipulated that each "officer and man" be "allowed to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by the United States authority."² As Allen Guelzo has recently noted in his biography of Robert E. Lee, Grant was not in a real position to demand a more stringent, unconditional surrender because his supply lines were stretched thin. There was, indeed, a very real chance that Lee might have been able to fight his way out.³

With the terms offered to Lee, Grant was following positions staked out by President Abraham Lincoln months before, but many Republicans, including the Indiana abolitionist George Julian, expressed disgust with the president's [End Page 293] "misguided magnanimity."⁴ Grant was to secure the surrender of the Confederate military, but not to deal with questions concerning civil and political rights. In adding the provision that the Confederates would be allowed to return to their homes undisturbed, Grant opened the door for a much broader interpretation of paroles, one that would have far-reaching consequences.

On April 10, Lee issued General Order No. 9, informing his troops that 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."⁵ Approximately 28,000 Confederate soldiers were paroled over the next several days, but that left at least another 20,000 who refused to surrender. Lee reminded Grant that the South "was a big country and that he might have to march over it three or four times before the war entirely ended."⁶ At Appomattox, Lee refused to speak more broadly for the white South. He did not call for a widespread surrender.

In his classic 1953 work, Stillness at Appomattox, Bruce Catton enshrined into myth and memory a romanticized understanding of the war's end. Catton wrote of the "enormous silence that lay upon the field" after the surrender as if all were accepting of the outcome (p. 379).⁷ The cessation of fighting in April 1865 has often provided a way for writers and filmmakers to fasten a neat and tidy end to the war. In Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph over Adversity (2000), historian Brooks Simpson writes that the terms established at Appomattox were a "necessary (if not entirely sufficient) foundation for reconciliation and reunion."⁸ However, according to Caroline Janney in her major new work, the Ends of War, by examining the "day by day after Appomattox, we see a far more contentious, uncertain, ambiguous, and lengthy ending to the American Civil War" (p...

• 重聚的磨难：宽宏大量的和平还是阿波马托克斯暴力的前奏？
• Erik J. Chaput（生平）

1865 年 4 月 3 日里士满市沦陷后，南方邦联将军罗伯特·E·李沿着里士满和丹维尔铁路向西南方向移动，前往重要铁路车站所在地林奇堡，联邦军队紧追不舍。李的处境越来越危急，他手下的许多人都缺乏基本资源，但也没有补给列车来帮助他。4 月 7 日，联盟将军尤利西斯·S·格兰特 (Ulysses S. Grant) 写信给李，要求他投降，希望结束流血事件。“上周的结果，”指的是从里士满的混乱逃跑和对彼得堡附近一个防御工事的进攻失败，“必须让你相信北弗吉尼亚军队在这场斗争中进一步抵抗是毫无希望的。” ^1个

在他的回应中，李没有参与格兰特的观点，但他确实提出了条件。4 月 9 日，李拒绝听从一些顾问的建议继续战斗，他选择在弗吉尼亚民兵退休军官威尔默麦克莱恩所拥有的房子的客厅里与格兰特坐下来。格兰特最终提出的宽宏大量条款规定，每个“军官和士兵”都可以“被允许返回家园，不受美国当局的干扰”。²正如艾伦·古埃尔佐 (Allen Guelzo) 最近在他的罗伯特·李 (Robert E. Lee) 传记中指出的那样，格兰特无法真正要求更严格、无条件的投降，因为他的补给线已经捉襟见肘。确实，李有一个非常真实的机会可能已经能够打出自己的出路。^3个

根据向李提供的条款，格兰特遵循了亚伯拉罕林肯总统几个月前所确立的立场，但包括印第安纳州废奴主义者乔治朱利安在内的许多共和党人对总统 [End Page 293]“被误导的宽宏大量”表示厌恶。⁴格兰特是为了确保同盟国军队投降，而不是处理有关公民权利和政治权利的问题。格兰特增加了允许同盟者不受干扰地返回家园的规定，为对假释进行更广泛的解释打开了大门，这将产生深远的影响。

4 月 10 日，李发布了第 9 号总令，通知他的部队，经过“四年艰苦的服役，以无与伦比的勇气和坚韧为标志，北弗吉尼亚陆军被迫屈服于压倒性的人数”。⁵在接下来的几天里，约有 28,000 名同盟国士兵被假释，但至少还有 20,000 人拒绝投降。李提醒格兰特，南方“是一个大国，在战争完全结束之前，他可能不得不经过三四次。” ⁶在阿波马托克斯，李拒绝更广泛地代表南方白人。他没有呼吁普遍投降。

在他 1953 年的经典作品《阿波马托克斯的寂静》中，布鲁斯·卡顿将对战争结束的浪漫化理解铭记在神话和记忆中。卡顿写道，投降后“战场上一片寂静”，就好像所有人都在接受结果一样（第 379 页）。⁷ 1865 年 4 月的停战常常为作家和电影制作人提供了一种让战争干净利落地结束的方式。在尤利西斯·S·格兰特 (Ulysses S. Grant)：战胜逆境(2000) 中，历史学家布鲁克斯·辛普森 (Brooks Simpson) 写道，在阿波马托克斯建立的条款是“和解与团聚的必要（如果不是完全充分）基础”。⁸然而，根据卡罗琳·詹尼 (Caroline Janney) 在其重要新作《战争的终结》中的说法，通过审视“阿波马托克斯之后的每一天，我们看到了美国内战更具争议性、不确定性、模棱两可和漫长的结局”（第...