Adam Badeau, Grant in peace: from Appomattox to Mount McGregor, a personal memoir

[22] of the fallen enemy, and learning my views he asked that I might be ordered to accompany him to represent the General-in-Chief directly in Richmond, and to report familiarly and confidentially what could hardly be the subject of official letters. Grant was accustomed to employ his staff officers on such errands and he complied at once with Ord's request. He informed me in a private conversation of the purpose of my orders. Ord's task, he said, was to foster a submissive spirit among the conquered population and soldiers, and to carry out the lenient policy which the terms at Appomattox had foreshadowed, and I was to assist him in every way. I was to be given duties that would lead me into contact with Southerners of importance, and among other tasks that of distributing food to the destitute was committed to me. In Richmond, at that time, every one was destitute, and when General Lee arrived from Appomattox I had learned the condition of the city, and sent at once to inquire if I could furnish him and his staff with supplies. He replied by an aide-de-camp that he was greatly obliged, and did not know what he should have done had the offer not been made. He wanted, indeed, to sell his horses, both to obtain money and because he had no forage. There was only one way in which the food could be supplied. Congress had provided for such emergencies: printed tickets were prescribed, on the presentation of which what was called the ‘destitute ration’ was furnished. A ticket for a destitute ration was accordingly made out for General Robert E. Lee and staff.

When I was returning to Washington Lee requested me to ask of Grant whether the soldiers captured at Sailor's Creek, four days before the final battle, might not be released on the terms granted to their fellows at Appomattox. There were 7,000 of these, among them General Custis Lee, a son of the Southern commander. But Grant considered that men taken in battle with arms in their hands were not as yet entitled to the same treatment with those who had surrendered