Rubbish. I see no reason to dismiss it.
"At this stage of the conference, General Lee rose from his chair; Rosecrans took the hint. He filed out, and the big Confederates, one behind the other, after him.
"Said Stockdale, I, being the little man in the farther corner, was the last to approach the door. General Lee had given a very polite good-morning to each man as he passed out; as I said to him, 'good-morning,' he gently closed the door before me, keeping the door-knob in his left hand, and said to me, as follows :
" 'Governor Stockdale, before you leave, I wish to give you my thanks for brave, true words. You know. Governor, what my position is. Those people (his uniform term for the Yankees) choose, for what reason I know not, to hold me as a representative Southerner ; hence, I know they watch my words, and if I should speak unadvisedly, what I say would be caught up by their speakers and newspapers, and magnified into a pretext for adding to the load of oppression they have placed upon our poor people; and God knows. Governor, that load is heavy enough now ; but you can speak, for you are not under that restraint, and I want to thank you for your bold, candid words.'
"Again, said Governor Stockdale, I thought he would dismiss me; but he still held the door closed, and after a time he resumed and uttered these words : 'Governor, if I had foreseen the use those people designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse ; no, sir, not by me.' Then, with rising color, throwing back his head like an old war-horse, he added these words, 'Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in this right hand.' He then dropped his head, and, with a sad look, added : 'This, of course, is for your ear only. My friend, good-morning;' and with that he opened the door and I took my leave.
"I said to Governor Stockdale, 'Sir, this narrative is of the greatest historical importance; don't you think so?' He replied, yes, he thought so, and had been advised by several friends to give it permanent historical form. I added my request that he would do so. Governor Stockdale replied that he was now an old man, an infirm man, with failing eyesight, heavily laden with the burdens of old age and infirmity, and supposed that he would never do anything more about it; but that he had given some facts to several old friends and intimates in DeWitt county, Texas, where he resided.
" 'I said to him : 'Governor, these are the reasons why I regard these incidents as of even grand historical importance. General Lee was no original secessionist ; he was no politician ; he was personally a man of great moderation and wisdom. In the months immediately following the war, he had struggled very hard to reconcile himself and his fellow-citizens to their defeat. He was also an eminent Christian; and in August, 1870, he well knew that he was a dying man, for his intimate friends were aware that he understood the symptoms of his decaying health, and knew that death was not far off. But now, after five years' experience of subjugation and reconstruction, this great martyr, this wise, grand old man, looking eternity in the face, forms this deliberate estimate of the illegality, the perjury and cruelty, the mischievousness of the reconstruction measures ; that had he foreknown clearly that the results of submission would be such, he would have preferred to die with his face to the foe. Impartial history will surely form the same estimate concerning this conclusion of the unconstitutional war of coercion and of the subjugation of the Southern States by other States, pretending to be their equals.' " - The Life and Letters of Robert Lewis Dabney, pp 499-500