After four years of Civil War, approximately 630,000 deaths and over 1 million casualties, General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, at the home of Wilmer and Virginia McLean in the town of Appomattox Court House,Virginia on April 9, 1865.
That was a different time, men were different; they were men of honor, and words meant things. Those words were what bound honorable men together, men of their word. The documents that ended that great conflict were short; thus ending the greatest military conflict that the world had yet to see. The words, took up less than two full sheets of paper, and were forever known and referred to as “The Gentleman’s Agreement”. Grant wrote a simple letter from himself to Lee, and Lee in turn wrote a simple letter to Grant.