In the spring of 1865, after nearly 10 months of siege at Petersburg and Richmond, Ulysses S. Grant’s army broke the last supply lines and Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia fled west. This episode follows that retreat: trains at Amelia Court House on April 4 carrying ammunition but no food, a lost day of foraging, the disaster at Sailor’s Creek on April 6 where nearly a fourth of the army and eight generals were captured, and George Armstrong Custer’s cavalry burning the supply trains at Appomattox Station. On April 9, John B. Gordon’s attack crested a ridge to find two Union infantry corps waiting.

Lee rejected Edward Porter Alexander’s proposal to scatter into a guerrilla war and sent for Grant. They met in the parlor of Wilmer McLean, who had moved to Appomattox after a shell struck his house at the First Battle of Bull Run. Lee wore a full dress uniform and sword; Grant arrived in a mud-spattered sack coat. The terms paroled the men, let officers keep sidearms, allowed soldiers to take home horses and mules, and sent Union rations to the starving army. On April 12 about 28,000 Confederates stacked arms in a ceremony received by Joshua Chamberlain.

• Gordon reported that he had fought his corps to a frazzle, and Lee replied that he would rather die a thousand deaths than go see Grant.
• A truce was signaled with a white linen dish towel carried into Union lines.
• Grant said a blinding migraine vanished the moment he read Lee’s letter about surrender.
• When Lee remarked on Ely S. Parker being a real American, Parker replied that they were all Americans.
• Grant ordered celebrating salutes stopped, saying the rebels were their countrymen again.