General Lee's sword will lie down at Appomattox

"Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules."
--Thomas Jefferson
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It’s an enduring myth of the Civil War: Robert E. Lee surrendered his sword to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, and his Union counterpart refused the traditional gesture of surrender. “Lee never offered it, and Grant never asked for it,” said Patrick Schroeder, historian at Appomattox Courthouse National Historical Park.

In a historical twist, though, Lee’s French-made ceremonial sword is returning to Appomattox 146 years later, leaving the Richmond museum where it has been displayed for nearly a century.

The Museum of the Confederacy in downtown Richmond is delivering one of its most-treasured pieces to Appomattox for a new museum that it’s building less than a mile from where Lee met with Grant to sign the document of surrender on April 9, 1865.

Via SHNV