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The Discovery of the Missing Third Copy of the Terms of Surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia.

By Herb Kaufman

On April 7, 1865 Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant sent the first of a succession of letters to General Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.  The Federal staff in the immediate vicinity of their headquarters noted that Grant presumed that the Union army was well situated and that Confederate chances of reaching much needed supplies at Lynchburg were almost hopeless.  Grant had made a personal decision to endeavor to make direct contact with General Lee in an attempt to avoid more bloodshed and obtain the surrender of Lee’s army.

There was apparently considerable disagreement among the Confederate staff as to the reply that should be made to Grant’s first letter.  Lt. General Longstreet’s initial reaction was simply, “Not yet.”  General Lee, nevertheless, responded to Grant by requesting the terms of possible surrender. 

Following the receipt of this letter, a number of Confederate officers held a meeting and came to the unavoidable conclusion that surrender was inevitable.  They asked Lee’s old friend, Brig. Gen. William Pendleton to present their concerns to Gen. Lee.  Upon receiving Pendleton, Lee responded in part, “I trust that it has not come to that.” 

Lee, however, knew that the end was near.  Thus began a series of letters between the two generals. This correspondence resulted in the famous meeting of April 9, 1865 in the Appomattox residence of Wilmer McLean, at which time, Robert E. Lee agreed to the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia.

It was also decided that each general would appoint three commissioners who would meet the following day to specify the full terms of the surrender.  In his memoirs, Major General John Gibbon, one of the Federal commissioners, stated that once the five final terms and conditions were delineated, “Triplicate copies were signed, one being retained by the officers of each army.  The third copy I kept and afterwards presented to the Historical Society of Maryland…”

Over the ensuing years one copy of these terms resided in the National Archives and the second copy remained in the Historical Society of Maryland as stated by Gen. Gibbon.  However, the third copy disappeared into history.

As the Civil War and Underground Railroad Museum was planning its closing while a new museum was being designed, I was asked by CEO Sharon Smith to assist in the archives by evaluating and cataloging the contents of every one of the several dozen boxes in the archives.  As I began this task I found that a good number of boxes of documents simply had a sticker on them stating, “Not cataloged.”  I also discovered one box with no notations at all.

Upon opening the unlabeled box I found a considerable number of modern prints of the exterior of the museum, as well as some additional unremarkable modern documents.  This seemed to be a box with nothing of any value.  Nevertheless, I removed all the papers and found several folders in the bottom of the box.  Upon opening one of these folders I was astonished to find what appeared to be the terms of the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia.  The document was glued to a piece of cardboard and a “preservative” of some kind had been applied many years ago.  I immediately took this over to the museum Curator and asked him to look at the document.  We both grabbed magnifying lenses and seeing the indentations of the pen, and the shading of the writing, we determined that this did appear to be the actual document.

Upon further investigation, we determined that the document had been given to the museum in the 1930’s by Bruce Ford, a well placed businessman and the son of a Union veteran.
As time passed, the provenance of the document was apparently lost.  In the 1960’s the document was considered by someone to be a “photocopy” and it then found its way into a box of other insignificant documents.

Since my discovery, a number of historians and archivists have examined the document and opined that it was indeed the third copy of the surrender terms.  Others, who have not actually seen the document, were contacted by news services and gave a number of varying opinions as to the genuineness of the document.

Continuing the research into this document on my own, I found that General Grant’s aide, Colonel Horace Porter, in his book, Campaigning With Grant, stated that copies of the surrender agreement signed on April 9, 1865 by generals Grant and Lee were made with Grant’s “manifold writer.”  This is an early type of copying machine where a document could be traced onto “black oiled sheets” to create a second copy.  It is possible that after the terms of surrender were completed, an aide made two copies with the manifold writer, each of which was then signed; therefore, making the three copies appear to be nearly identical. 

Making this discovery was one of the most interesting and remarkable experiences that I have had.  As a historian, I have had the opportunity to examine a significant number of extraordinary documents.  But none of these will ever replace the amazement of finding this singularly historic agreement.