On May 1, 1869 Robert E. Lee visited U.S. Grant at the White House. This meeting would be variously interpreted over the years. The two men had been locked in deadly combat from June, 1864 until April, 1865 when Lee surrendered. The meeting came soon after Grant took office.
May 2, 1869
NY Herald
Douglas Southall Freeman, a sympathetic biographer of Lee, discussed this meeting:
Lee’s Interview with Grant, May 1, 1869
Of the two most detailed contemporary published versions of Lee’s interview with President Grant at the White House on May 1, 1869, one represented General Lee as saying too little, the other as talking too much. The New York Herald1 reported the incident in this manner:
“The following conversation occurred between the President and General Lee, which lasted about five minutes:
“General Lee: Mr. President, I called today, in accordance with your kind invitation, with my friends here, Mr. and Mrs. Taggart [sic], of Baltimore, to thank you for the honor you have done me.
“President: I did wish, General, to have a somewhat lengthy conversation with you in regard to matters relating to your section of the country, if such will be agreeable to you.
“General Lee: Mr. President, I would much prefer that you should not take my opinions and views as representing those of the people of Virginia and the South, and I do not think I could give any useful information on that subject. If you will excuse me, Mr. President, I will repeat my thanks for your invitation, and bid you goodday.”
All this may conceivably have been said, in substance, but it certainly is not all that was said. Lee would not have been so abrupt. p521
The other extended version is that of The New York Tribune.2 It described the interview as “polite and cordial,” but marked by “a certain reserve.” Nothing was said about the war, but Lee, at Grant’s instance, is alleged to have “made several suggestions” on politics respecting Virginia and the South. He is credited, also, in this account, with opinions that hardly could be ascribed to him.
As neither of these accounts can be accepted, it probably is best to take the statements of Robert M. Douglas and of Robert E. Lee, Jr., as authentic, however much one might wish for something colorful, something dramatic: “The visit,” Judge Douglas wrote long afterwards, “was merely one of courtesy, and did not last long.”3 Said Captain Lee, “this meeting was of no political significance whatever, but simply a call of courtesy. . . . The interview lasted about fifteen minutes, and neither General Lee nor the President spoke a word on political matters.”4
General Badeau, who was not present, stated that his information came from Grant and from J. L. Motley. He wrote: “Motley said that both men were simple and dignified, but he thought there was a shade of constraint in the manner of Lee, who was indeed always inclined to be more formal than the Northern general. The former enemies shook hands; Grant asked Lee to be seated, and presented Motley. The interview was short, and all that Grant could remember afterwards was that they spoke of building railroads, and he said playfully to Lee, ‘You and I, General, have had more to do with destroying railroads than building them.’ But Lee refused to smile, or to recognize the raillery. He went on gravely with the conversation, and no other reference was made to the past. Lee soon arose, and the soldiers parted. . . .”5
Source: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/People/Robert_E_Lee/FREREL/4/Appendices/6*.html
In a recent book on the Grant Administration, historian Charles Calhoun did not see the visit as particularly significant:
In early May 1869 Grant engaged in symbolic reconciliation by accepting a courtesy call from Robert E. Lee, who was in Washington on business connected with railroad construction. The two did not meet in private; John Lothrop Motley, the new minister to England, and two of Lee’s friends were present for the conversation, which avoided public issues. At one point, Grant quipped that he and Lee had “had more to do with destroying railroads than building them,” but the frosty ex-Confederate ignored this attempt at levity.
Although reporters (and later historians) read more significance into this brief conversation than it possessed, the president’s meeting with his old rival, even if only for a personal chat, signaled to white southerners that he saw no profit in perpetuating wartime bitterness.
[Calhoun, Charles W.. The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant (American Presidency Series) (pp. 97-98). University Press of Kansas. Kindle Edition.]
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upper case “White,” if you please.
It is wonderful of you to lift up this too-little known meeting to the public, generally, and the Civil War audience, specifically.
Citing Freeman and Calhoun is indicative of an even-handed balance in your approach that ia refreshing as well as badly needed.
Hurrah, I say!
Bring forth more good History coverage!
Thanks.
One for all, all for one, so be it…
Much ado about nothing. A missed opportunity for building something positive.
Grant was only good at one thing in his life…war making. He failed at business and farming, and ultimately, politics. There was no chance he could have ever been the one to heal old wounds having been the most successful at inflicting them. Lee, on the other hand, was tired, worn out, and broken. He carried the shame of defeat about as well as one could have. It is indicative of the man’s character that he went through with this courtesy meeting. The meeting itself was one of acknowledgement to each other as rivals who shared a significant historical event that made them a symbolic pair of “historical brothers.” It was probably for the best (for both men) that nothing more came of this visit. Historians would have argued incessantly over it and tarnished their legacies with speculative gibberish.
I appreciate Grant’s massive effort to bring former southern slaves into the political structure of our government by providing them jobs of every kind.
Further, Grant placed federal troops in many major cities throughout the south to protect back people from being lynched, murdered and oppressed by white populations embittered regarding their losing the war.
While ultimately his attempts toward treating all men equal was discarded as soon as he left office, his vision and practical outworking of it count him as being the most astonishingly forward-looking white man of the century. It would take nearly another 100 years before Dr. King raised the vision again and the Kennedy’s and Johnson took any real steps toward bringing civil rights to black people everywhere.
His visionary example makes him a tremendous success that should be studied and emulated today.
I agree with you about Grant. If you haven’t already, you should read “American Ulysses” by Ronald C. White.
Your reference to Dr. King and the Kennedys and Johnson overlooks what Harry S. Truman had the courage to do nearly 20 years before. He wrote his sister that “Mama won’t like what I have to say” before he became the first President to address the NAACP–from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1947, just as King would do later during the 1963 march on Washington. In that speech, Truman forcefully advocated equal rights: “Our immediate task is to remove the last remnants of the barriers, which stand between millions of our citizens and their birthright,” he said. “There is no justifiable reason for discrimination because of ancestry, or religion. Or race, or color.” He went on to say: “Every man should have the right to a decent home, the right to an education, the right to adequate medical care, the right to a worthwhile job, the right to an equal share in the making of public decisions through the ballot, and the right to a fair trial in a fair court. We must insure that these rights — on equal terms are enjoyed by every citizen.” In 1948, with a stroke of the pen, he ordered desegregation of the military.
He did all of that knowing that the opposition of Southern Democrats could hurt him in the 1948 presidential campaign. And, indeed, a contingent of Southern Democrats walked out of the Democratic national convention because of Truman’s stand on civil rights. The “Dixiecrats” nominated Strom Thurmond for President, splitting the Democratic Party, which was further split by Henry Wallace running on the Progressive Party ticket.
Truman was right about so many things, and civil rights for African Americans was among the major ones.
It’s really striking to speculate that if Lee had honored the oath he swore as an officer in the United States Army and had taken command as Lincoln had offered him, he might have been the occupant of the White House, and the abortive “uprising of ’61” just a footnote in our history after he forced the malcontents back to the negotiating table by destroying their army at First (and only) Bull Run.
An interesting alternative history.
While it’s interesting, and I would argue heuristic, to consider the what ifs of history for many reasons, I will pose that Robert E. Lee did honour his Oath in the course he followed into the Civil War/War Between The States from 1861-65.
As did, for example, Abraham Lincoln.
Lee and Lincoln represent the two disparate camps of American federalism/Constitutional interpretation and enactment that co-existed in competition to each other since practically the end of the American Revolution.
Lee was steeped in the ‘States Rights’ camp that saw the States as the paramount political units within American federalism; their sovereign capacities as such rendered the Union which bound them a purely voluntary institution, similar to the cantons of Switzerland in the 1700s.
Lincoln in contrast was firmly entrenched in the ‘Union Paramountcy’ camp which saw the Union binding the various, or potential, states together in a necessarily perpetual political unit, the whole being greater and more important than the mere sum of its parts, to use a Gestalt term. Thus, the Union was the anchor of unity between all Americans and thus the dominant political unit, similar as to what the Fathers of Canadian Confederation aspired to in the creation of the Dominion of Canada.
Wonderfully stated Hugh de Mann. I think this viewpoint is lost as we proceed further through time. So many attempts at whittling this down to one fact or another, when indeed the American political diaspora has never been quite so simple.
(Shrug)
Thank you. I appreciate your comments there.
I would also like to thank the Admin for selflessly devoting his time to creating and maintaining this page, which is pretty much the best CW/WBTS page online.
The primary resources he has managed to obtain and then flesh out with, for example, his tours of significant areas is just fantastic.
At every point, Patrick has advanced critical reflection of the war as a topic and I hope he realises the gratitude that’s keenly felt towards his efforts.
Agree/disagree/concur/demure with any given argument/post, this page infallibly advances heuristic understanding of the war.
All the best to you and your family! Merry Christmas!
Thanks. I was visiting six Civil War sites in Pennsylvania when you wrote this!