Robert E. Lee - Local Girl Describes the Surrender of Lee’s Army at Appomattox Court House More than Seventy Years Later

[CIVIL WAR.] VICTORIA BRYANT JENKINS, Typescript and Manuscript Reminiscences of Lee’s Surrender at Appomattox Court House, ca. 1937, together with clippings and details about the Sweeney House, ca. 1960s. Typescript, 4 pp., 8? x 10.5?

manuscript, 4 pp., 5? x 8?. Expected folds and some general toning

very good.

Excerpts:

“It was just one week before General Lee surrendered that the Southern soldiers commenced to come through where we lived.” (p1)

“I heard the booming of the cannons and the poping of the muskets very distinctly. While that last battle was being fought at the Court House, both lines of battle were being formed at the crest of the hills on either side of our home which was situated on the Buckingham Road about one mile from the Court House.” (p1)

“A very large room in our house was used as a hospital for the sick and wounded. I remember my mother and sisters attending those who were ill and suffering, giving them all possible care. So the surrender to them did not mean that their job was through because for some time we waited on the soldiers who were unable to return to their homes.” (p2)

“Three or four days before the surrender, Lee had his headquarters in my sister’s home.” (p2)

“After the surrender and all was silent the place was strewn with the dead and wounded. The dead could not be buried in coffins, so trenches were dug and the bodies were placed in them.” (p3)

Historical Background:

General Ulysses S. Grant’s forces cut the last supply lines to Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia, on April 1 and 2, 1865, forcing the Confederates to abandon both cities. The Confederate government fled west by train, while General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia marched, hoping to resupply and unite with Joseph E. Johnston’s army in North Carolina. Major General Philip H. Sheridan, commanding Grant’s cavalry with the V Corps in support, pursued Lee relentlessly.

On April 6, at Sayler’s Creek, Union cavalry isolated a corps of Confederate infantry under General Richard S. Ewell, capturing him, six other generals, and nearly 8,000 Confederate soldiers. Late in the afternoon of April 7, General Grant sent a direct message asking General Lee to acknowledge the “hopelessness of further resistance” and to surrender to avoid further bloodshed.

Three days later, after more correspondence and more Confederate losses, on April 9, Generals Grant and Lee met at Appomattox Court House at 3:00 p.m. to complete the surrender, and at 4:30 p.m., Grant telegraphed Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, “General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia this afternoon upon terms proposed by myself.”
Victoria Bryant Jenkins (1859-1943) was born at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, the youngest child of carpenter James Bryant (1816-1876) and Susan A. Layne Bryant (1820-1898). In 1876, Victoria Bryant married Christopher C. Jenkins (1855-1914), and they had ten children. In 1900, he was a stone mason, and they lived in Manchester, Virginia. After his death, she lived in Richmond and worked as a seamstress, then with one of her children in Manchester.
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