Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant sent a telegraph on April 9, 1865 from Headquarters Army of the U.S. to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton in Washington that read: "General Lee surrendered the army of Northern Virginia this afternoon on terms proposed by myself the accompaning additional correspondence will show the conditiions fully."

Brig. Gen. George F. Shepley, military governor of Richmond, which had fallen less than a week earlier, kept this copy of the telegram among his papers.