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The McLean House

 

 

 




 

The Room in the McLean House, at Appomattox C.H., in which Gen. Lee surrendered to Gen. Grant


Most written accounts of Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, noted the difference between Lee’s stiff dignity and Grant’s more relaxed demeanor. This lithograph of the event, showing the two men as they waited for the peace terms to be copied, captures that difference better than most.

After the surrender, Wilmer McLean, the owner of the house, lost much of his furniture to soldiers desiring mementos of the historic event. Later, in what proved to be a futile effort to recoup his losses and raise funds for his needy family, he commissioned this print.


Major and Knapp Lithography Company
(active 1864–circa 1880), after photographs
Lithograph with tintstone, 1867
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

 

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