page_title: Ely S. Parker
section_title: Civil War service
hierarchical_section_title: Ely S. Parker / Civil War service
caption_attribution_description: The Room in the McLean House, at Appomattox C.H., in which Gen. Lee surrendered to Gen. Grant Most written accounts of Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, noted the difference between Lee’s stiff dignity and Grant’s more relaxed demeanor. This lithograph of the event, showing the two men as they waited for the peace terms to be copied, captures that difference better than most. After the surrender, Wilmer McLean, the owner of the house, lost much of his furniture to soldiers desiring mementos of the historic event. Later, in what proved to be a futile effort to recoup his losses and raise funds for his needy family, he commissioned this print. Pictured Left to Right: John Gibbon, George Armstrong Custer, Cyrus B. Comstock, Orville E. Babcock, Charles Marshall, Walter H. Taylor, Robert E. Lee, Philip Sheridan, Ulysses S. Grant, John Aaron Rawlins, Charles Griffin, unidentified, George Meade, Ely S. Parker, James W. Forsyth, Wesley Merritt, Theodore Shelton Bowers, Edward Ord. The man not identified in the picture’s legend is thought to be General Joshua Chamberlain, a hero of Gettysburg who presided over the formal surrender of arms by Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia on April 12, 1865. The table and chairs are on display at the Smithsonian Istitution.
context_page_description: Ely Samuel Parker, born Hasanoanda, later known as Donehogawa, was a Tonawanda Seneca U.S. Army officer, attorney, engineer, and tribal diplomat. He was commissioned a lieutenant colonel during the American Civil War, when he served as adjutant and secretary to General Ulysses S. Grant. He wrote the final draft of the Confederate surrender terms at Appomattox. Later in his career, Parker rose to the rank of brevet brigadier general. When Grant was elected president, he appointed Parker as Commissioner of Indian Affairs, the first Native American to hold that post.
context_section_description: Near the start of the Civil War, Parker tried to raise a regiment of Iroquois volunteers to fight for the Union, but was turned down by New York Governor Edwin D. Morgan.  He then sought to join the Union Army as an engineer, but was told by Secretary of War Simon Cameron that as an Indian, he could not join.  Parker contacted his colleague and friend Ulysses S. Grant, whose forces suffered from a shortage of engineers. Parker was commissioned a captain in May 1863 and ordered to report to Brig. Gen. John Eugene Smith. Smith appointed Parker as the chief engineer of his 7th Division during the siege of Vicksburg, and later said Parker was a "good engineer".
  When Ulysses S. Grant became commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi, Parker became his adjutant during the Chattanooga Campaign.  He was subsequently transferred with Grant as the adjutant of the U.S. Army headquarters and served Grant through the Overland Campaign and the Siege of Petersburg. At Petersburg, Parker was appointed as the military secretary to Grant, with the rank of lieutenant colonel.  He wrote much of Grant's correspondence.
  Parker was present when Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse in April 1865.  He helped draft the surrender documents, which are in his handwriting. At the time of surrender, General Lee "stared at me for a moment," said Parker to more than one of his friends and relatives, "He extended his hand and said, 'I am glad to see one real American here.' I shook his hand and said, 'We are all Americans.'  Parker was brevetted brigadier general of United States Volunteers on April 9, 1865, and of United States Army March 2, 1867.
caption: Surrender at Appomattox. Ely Parker is third from right, back row
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