J. F. J. Caldwell writes from Greenwood, S. C.:

I wish to call attention to the story of Gen. Grant's refusal to accept the surrender of Gen. Lee's sword at Appomattox, a story without a particle of foundation in fact, and utterly unreasonable, yet widely circulated by Northern writers and speakers, and credited by a good many persons in the South. The account of the ceremonies attending the return of the flag of the Eighth Texas Cavalry in the Veteran of December, 1899, reports Gov. Sayers as saying, "And finally Appomattox came, and Lee surrendered, the great, heroic, magnanimous Grant refusing to take this sword."

Col. Charles Marshall, who was, I believe, the only officer accompanying Gen. Lee on that occasion, has declared that nothing of that kind occurred. Dr. J. William Jones, in "Personal Reminiscences of Gen. Robert E. Lee," at page 303, reports Gen. Lee as making a similar statement during a conversation with a company of friends as follows: "Gen. Grant returned you your sword, did he not, General' one of the company asked. The old hero, straightening himself up, replied: 'No, sir; he did not. He had no opportunity of doing so. I was determined that the side arms of officers should be exempt by the terms of surrender, and of course I did not offer him mine. All that was said about swords was the Gen. Grant apologized to me for not wearing his own sword, saying that it had been taken off in his baggage, and he had been unable to get it in time.'"

But we need not depend solely on the testimony of those men. The well-ascertained circumstances of the situation flatly and irreconcilably contradict the story. The two generals met to consider the question of surrender. It would have been contemptibly nonsensical and pusillanimous in Gen. Lee to tender his sword before the terms were agreed upon. By the terms they did agree upon all Confederate officer were to retain their side arms and other private property. There was then less reason than ever for the surrender of the sword. No one except a scared coward or the most truckling toadeater would have dreamed of committing voluntarily such an act of self-humiliation. Here is the evidence against the story. Where is he proof of its truth?