Seven Nights To Surrender

[Heike Fallago]

AsI gave our son his nightly bath, my wife, Lauren (who I call La La), showered in the other bathroom. It dawned on me: Is this the only time she gets to herself each day? Those 15 minutes in the shower?

When my mom was alive, she told me her saddest day of mothering entailed picking me up from school the day after I was cut from the golf team in seventh grade. She had seen me work hard all summer long, but now she was dropping me off at the course to play alone while the other seventh graders practiced with the team. She did not argue with the coach, and she did not tell me to focus on making the team next year. In that van ride years ago, my mom sat with me in distraught rejection. She held me. She carried me.

From the womb to her loving arms to those silent van rides, where I was comforted by knowing I was not alone, my mother had surrendered me to the world. A decade and a half later, she told me she cried all the way home.

There is nothing wrong with asking for something in prayer, as this names for God the desires of our hearts. But sometimes in a culture that is so focused on results, this can also bleed into our prayer lives, leading us to treat God like a genie.

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Set in Paris, the City of Love, Jeanette Grey brings you an intoxicating, irresistibly romantic and sexy read. Fans of Kristen Proby, Sandi Lynn, Maya Banks and J. Kenner will fall head over heels for this stunning romance.

One sultry summer in the City of Love...

Two strangers meet accidentally over un caf au lait. Two New Yorkers in Paris, who are worlds apart.

Kate is a soul-searching art graduate hoping to find herself.

Rylan is a gorgeous millionaire hiding who he truly is.

By day, they tour the City of Light and, under the cover of darkness, they explore one another. They have seven intoxicating nights of pure surrender, and addictive pleasure, together.

But with Kate's future utterly uncertain, and Rylan escaping his secret past, do they stand a chance at true love?

Kate and Rylan's powerful love story doesn't stop here... Look for the sequel, Eight Ways To Ecstasy. And if you're lusting after more from Jeanette, indulge in her beautiful New Adult novel, When The Stars Align.

The war, however, did not officially conclude at that tiny village west of Petersburg, Virginia. But what happened there in early April 150 years ago certainly marked the beginning of the end for the Confederacy.

After the fall of Richmond, the Confederate capital, on April 2, 1865, officials in the Confederate government, including President Jefferson Davis, fled. The dominoes began to fall. The surrender at Appomattox took place a week later on April 9.

While it was the most significant surrender to take place during the Civil War, Gen. Robert E. Lee, the Confederacy's most respected commander, surrendered only his Army of Northern Virginia to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

After Richmond fell and Davis fled, Confederate commanders were on their own to surrender their commands to Union forces. Surrenders, paroles, and amnesty for many Confederate combatants would take place over the next several months and into 1866 throughout the South and border states.

"The result of last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in this struggle," Grant wrote. "I feel that it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself any further effusion of blood, by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the C.S. Army known as the Army of Northern Virginia."

Lee responded, saying he did not agree with Grant's opinion of the hopelessness of further resistance of his army. However, he did ask what terms Grant was offering. This correspondence would continue throughout the following day.

Meanwhile, Union Gen. Philip Sheridan's cavalry, along with two rapidly moving infantry corps, marched hard from Farmville, in central Virginia, along a more southerly route than Confederate forces. Union cavalry reached Appomattox Station before Lee and blocked his path on April 8.

The next morning, Lee faced Union cavalry and infantry in his front at Appomattox Court House and two Union corps to his rear three miles to the northeast at New Hope Church. At dawn, Confederate Gen. John B. Gordon's corps attacked Federal cavalry, but Gordon quickly realized he could not push forward without substantial help from other Confederate forces.

Lee, upon learning of this news and realizing his retreat had been halted, asked Grant for a meeting to discuss his army's surrender. He later asked for "a suspension of hostilities" pending the outcome of the surrender talks.

Grant received Lee's request four miles west of Walker's Church, about six miles from Appomattox Court House. One of Grant's aides, Lt. Col. Orville Babcock, and his orderly, Capt. William McKee Dunn, brought Grant's reply to Lee. The meeting place was left to Lee's discretion. Lee and two of his aides rode toward Appomattox Court House, accompanied by Babcock and Dunn. Soon Lee sent the aides ahead to find a suitable location for the surrender.

Soon after entering the village, the two Confederates happened upon a homeowner, Wilmer McLean, who showed them an unfurnished and somewhat run-down house. After being told that would not do for such an important occasion, he offered his own house for the surrender meeting. After seeing the house, they accepted and sent a message back to Lee.

Grant proposed that the Confederates, with the exception of officers, lay down their arms, and after signing paroles, return to their homes. Lee agreed with the terms, and Grant began writing them out.

One issue that Lee brought up before the terms were finalized and signed was the issue of horses. He pointed out that unlike the Federals, Confederate cavalrymen and artillerymen in his army owned their own horses. Grant stated that he would not add it to the agreement but would instruct his officers receiving the paroles to let the men take their animals home. Lee also brought up the subject of rations since his men had gone without rations for several days. Grant agreed to supply 25,000 rations to the hungry Confederate soldiers. Most of the rations were provided from Confederate supplies captured by Sheridan when he seized rebel supply trains at Appomattox Station the previous day.

Grant and Lee met on horseback around 10 in the morning of April 10 on the eastern edge of town. There are conflicting accounts to what they discussed, but it is believed that three things came out of this meeting: each Confederate soldier would be given a printed pass, signed by his officers, to prove he was a paroled prisoner; all cavalrymen and artillerymen would be allowed to retain their horses; and Confederates who had to pass through Federal-occupied territory to get home were allowed free transportation on U.S. government railroads and vessels.

Printing presses were set up to print the paroles, and the formal surrender of arms took place on April 12. For those who stayed with Lee until the end, the war was over. It was time for them to head home. Lee left Appomattox and rode to Richmond to join his wife.

The day after Lee's surrender, the federal War Department was still trying to work out who was included in the terms of the agreement; its terms had not yet been received in Washington. Was it all members of the Army of Northern Virginia or just those who were with Lee at the time of surrender?

Maj. Gen. Godfrey Weitzel, the Union commander in charge of Richmond, telegraphed Grant that "the people here are anxious that [John] Mosby should be included in Lee's surrender. They say he belongs to that army." The unit they were referring to was Mosby's Rangers, also known as the 43rd Battalion of Virginia Cavalry, who harassed Union forces in Virginia for the last few years of the war.

In addition, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton requested from Grant further clarification about forces in Loudoun County, Virginia, that belonged to the Army of Northern Virginia and whether they fell under Lee's surrender. Grant clarified the matter in a telegram to Stanton on the night of April 10:

This matched a telegram sent mid-afternoon from Chief of Staff Gen. Henry W. Halleck to Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock in which the chief of staff advised the general that the secretary of war wanted him to print and circulate the correspondence between Grant and Lee concerning the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. Halleck then provided further guidance that "All detachments and stragglers from that army will, upon complying with the conditions agreed upon, be paroled and permitted to return to their homes."

Since not everyone was yet in a surrendering mood, Halleck further advised that those who did not surrender would be treated as prisoners of war. He ended the telegram with one exception, "the guerrilla chief Mosby will not be paroled."

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