"I Bid You an Affectionate Farewell"
On the rainy morning of April 10, 1865, the day after he agreed to Grant’s terms of surrender at Appomattox Court House, General Robert E. Lee authored his famous farewell address to the Army of Northern Virginia, known officially as “General Order No. 9.” Colonel Theodore Lyman, a staff officer under the command of Union general George Meade, recalled upon meeting Lee later that day that he was “exceedingly grave and dignified—this I believe, he always was; but there was evidently an extreme depression, which gave him an air of a man who kept up his pride to the last, but who was entirely overwhelmed.”
On the rainy morning of April 10, 1865, the day after he agreed to Grant’s terms of surrender at Appomattox Court House, General Robert E. Lee authored his famous farewell address to the Army of Northern Virginia, known officially as “General Order No. 9.” Colonel Theodore Lyman, a staff officer under the command of Union general George Meade, recalled upon meeting Lee later that day that he was “exceedingly grave and dignified—this I believe, he always was; but there was evidently an extreme depression, which gave him an air of a man who kept up his pride to the last, but who was entirely overwhelmed.”