Meade visits Lee?

[Broch]

I read a reference (I think in this forum) to Meade going to see Lee after the surrender at Appomattox. However, I can find nothing more. Did such a visit actually occur? Thanks.

 

[Broch]

To respond to my own question, I found a reference in Gordon's memoirs about Meade visiting Lee and, when Lee jokingly said Meade had become gray, Meade "made the strikingly gracious and magnanimous answer; 'Not years, but General Lee himself has made me gray.'''

 

[nc native]

Yes, Meade did visit Lee after Appomattox. General Lee teased George Meade about all of the grey in his beard since he had last seen him and General Meade responded "You are the one responsible for putting it there."

 

[Broch]

Yes, Meade did visit Lee after Appomattox. General Lee teased George Meade about all of the grey in his beard since he had last seen him and General Meade responded "You are the one responsible for putting it there."

Many thanks for giving me that information. I find the collegiality between formerly-opposing generals very impressive and somehow reassuring.

 

[nc native]

Many thanks for giving me that information. I find the collegiality between formerly-opposing generals very impressive and somehow reassuring.

General Lee and George Meade knew each other well in the pre-war army. They were both engineers and probably collaborated on several projects together.

 

[SgtDarby8OVI]

John Selby includes this exchange in Meade: The Price of Command, 1863-1865 (Kent State Press, 2018, p 288) and cites David Lowe, Meade's Army: the Private Diaries of Lt. Theodore Lyman (Kent State Press, 2007, pp 369-71) as the source.