“When I put my pen to the paper," wrote General Grant in his Memoirs, "I did not know the first word I should make use of in writing the terms. I only knew what was in my mind, and I wished to express it clearly, so there could be no mistaking it. As I wrote on, the thought occurred to me, that the officers had their own private horses and effects, which were important to them, but of no value to us; also that it would be an unnecessary humiliation to call upon them to deliver their side-arms."

General Lee remarked that the provision allowing officers to retain their side-arms and horses would have a good effect on his army. He further said that many privates among the cavalry and artillery owned their own horses, and asked if they also were to be allowed to retain them. "I then said to him," General Grant further records, "that I thought this would be about the last battle of the war - I sincerely hoped so; and I said further I took it that most of the men in the ranks were small farmers. The whole country had been so raided by the two armies that it was doubtful whether they would be able to put in a crop to carry themselves and their families through the next winter without the aid of the horses they were then riding. The United States did not want them and I would, therefore, instruct the officers I left behind to receive the paroles of his troops to let every man of the Confederate army who claimed to own a horse or mule take the animal to his home. Lee remarked again that this would have a happy effect." General Lee then wrote the following reply:

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA,

APRIL 9, 1865.

General: I received your letter of this date containing the terms of the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia as proposed by you. As they are substantially the same as those expressed in your letter of the 8th inst., they are accepted. I will proceed to designate the proper officers to carry the stipulations into effect.

Lieut.-General U. S. Grant.

R. E. LEE,

General.

The Union officers present were now presented to General Lee. He gravely bowed to each. After a few words more of general conversation, the two chiefs shook hands, and Lee walked out on the front porch, where several of the Union officers followed and saluted. As he stood a moment pulling on his gauntlets, his glance went away to his battered veterans ranged on the hills near by. He then mounted his horse and rode away slowly to his own headquarters.

The next day General Grant made a call of courtesy upon General Lee. The two men sat their horses and talked together for several minutes in full view of both armies, the officers of each army grouping themselves around their leaders, but beyond earshot. After the visit was over, Grant rode away to take the train for Washington to make his full report. Noththing could have been more characteristic of the man than this simple conduct. He cared nothing for the the display of war; he modestly and generously received the surrender of an army that had dazzled men's minds by the brilliancy of its courage and skill - but he did it directly, simply, unpretentiously. General Badeau records that there was no emotion in his eye, no exultation in his manner, and that his voice was natural. When the formalities were over he went away to the next duty, leaving all details of the surrender in the hands of subordinates. There was no playing of bands, no firing of salutes.

Lee remained at his own headquarters for three days, and then with a small escort he rode on horseback to his own home in Richmond. As he drew near the city, a silent, uncovered crowd gathered along the way. "There was no excitement,' says an eyewitness, "no hurrahing; but as the great chief passed, a deep, loving murmur, greater than these, rose from the very hearts of the crowd. Taking off his hat, and simply bowing his head, the man great in adversity passed silently to his own door; it closed upon him; and his people had seen him for the last time in his battle harness."

As to the closing scene at Appomattox, "there is not in our whole history as a people," says Charles Francis Adams, the grandson of John Quincy, "any incident so creditable to our manhood, — so indicative of our racial possession of Character. Marked throughout by a straightforward dignity of personal bearing and propriety in action, it was marred by no touch of the theatrical, no effort at posturing. I know not to which of the two leaders, there face to face, preference should be given. They were thoroughly typical; the one of Illinois and the New West, the other of Virginia and the Old Dominion. Grant was considerate and magnanimous, - restrained in victory; Lee, dignified in defeat, carried himself with that sense of absolute fitness which compelled respect. Verily !— 'he that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city.""

THE YOUNGEST CHILD OF CIVILIZATION
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY

[The following two selections are taken from an address before the New York Historical Society in 1868. The address was entitled "Historic Progress and American Democracy." It was probably one of the influences that led to Motley's appointment as minister of the United States to England by President Grant.]

CONSIDER but a moment. The island on which this city stands is as perfect a site as man could desire for a great, commercial, imperial city. Byzantium, which the lords of the ancient world built for the capital of the earth; which the temperate and vigorous Turk in the days of their stern military discipline plucked from the decrepit hands which held the sceptre of Cæsar and Constantine, and for the succession to which the present lords of Europe are wrangling; not Byzantium, nor hundred-gated Thebes; nor London, nor Liverpool, nor Paris, nor Moscow can surpass the future certainties of this thirteen-mile long Manhattan.

And yet it was but yesterday - for what are two centuries and a half in the boundless vista of the Past? that the Mohawk and the Mohican were tomahawking and scalping each other throughout these regions, and had been doing so for centuries; when the whole surface of this island, now groaning under millions of wealth which oppress the imagination, hardly furnished a respectable hunting-ground for a single Sachem, in his war-paint and moccasins, who imagined himself proprietor of the soil.

But yesterday Cimmerian darkness; primeval night. Today, grandeur, luxury, wealth, power. I come not here to-night to draw pictures or pour forth dithyrambics that I may gratify your vanity or my own, whether municipal or national. To appreciate the unexampled advantages bestowed by the Omnipotent upon this favored Republic, this youngest child of civilization, is rather to oppress the thoughtful mind with an overwhelming sense of responsibility; to sadden with quickcoming fears; to torture with reasonable doubts. The world's great hope is here. The future of humanity - at least for that cycle in which we are now revolving - depends mainly upon the manner in which we deal with our great trust.

PRIVILEGE AND FREEDOM

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY

It is impossible to imagine a more fortunate position than that occupied by this Republic. Nature has done its best, and it is not for physical advantages alone that she should be ever grateful.

All the experience of the old world, all its acquisitions, all its sufferings, all its beacons of warning are for our benefit. Feudal System, Divine Right, are essentially as dead figments here as the laws of Lycurgus, or Draco. Religion can be honestly and ardently cherished because priesthood is deprived of political power. Universal education, the only possible foun

dation of human freedom, is the easiest duty, because the Church is powerless to arrogate a function which it can never discharge.

But to the solemn birthday of the infant America, around whose cradle, obscure as it was, so many good spirits had invisibly clustered, one malignant fairy had not been bidden, and her name was Privilege. And even as in the story-book, she sent a curse to avenge the slight. Almost on that natal day we know the tale too well, and have had cause to ponder it bitterly came the accursed bark with its freight of victims from unhappy Africa, and Privilege had silently planted in this virgin soil the seeds of her future sway.

It was an accident if anything can be called accidental in the grand scheme of Creation yet out of that grain of mustard-seed was one day to sprout an evil to overshadow this land; to poison with its deadly exhalations the vigorous atmosphere of freedom. Oligarchy grew up and held its own, side by side with Democracy - until the time came for deciding whether the one principle or the other was in conformity with the eternal law. . . .

And the great conflict went on while the world stood wondering. Never in human history has there been such a battle with such a stake. It was not for territory, empire, power. It was not merely for the integrity of this vast republican heritage. These things, though precious, are of little worth compared to the sacred principle concerned in the struggle. For it was to be decided whether the great law of history which we have been tracing was a truth or a lie; whether the human race has been steadily although slowly progressing or whether we have been fatally drifting back to Chaos. For surely if freedom is an evil from which society, new or old, is to be saved and slavery the great remedy and the great hope for the world, the only solution of political problems, then is the science of history the most contemptible of all imaginable studies. It was not a question for America, but for all the world. The