Sweeney Prizery The Sweeney Prizery is a structure within the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park . It was registered in the National Park Service ' s database of Official Structures on June 26 , 1989 . History . This building , constructed around 1790 to 1799 , is the oldest structure in the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park . The Sweeney prizery is a building that was a tobacco - packing house owned by Major Joel Flood in 1865 . The local farmers would bring their crop of tobacco here to be packed in hogshead s for storage and later transport to the market . Many Confederate soldiers camped in this vicinity during the previous night of the surrender of the Confederate army to the Union army on April 9 , 1865 . The Sweeney prizery is located near the site of General Lee ' s headquarters . The Sweeney prizery was built primarily as a residence for Alexander Sweeney and the cellar used as a prizery for his business . A prizery is a building where tobacco was " prized . " Prized means the tobacco is pressed layer by layer into hogshead barrels , large cask s or barrels to store and transport tobacco . These casks often weighed up to 1000 pounds . The tobacco plants were first " stemmed " ( stripped of fibers ) and then packed when the autumn harvest came in . Tobacco is handled in a leaf stemmery . It is received in baskets from the warehouse and weighed . Then it is roughly graded by basketsfuls and stored in heaps waiting for stemming . The leafs are conditioned for handling . After stemming the " strips " are graded and bundled into " hands . " These are straddled over sticks and put through drying and " prized " into hogsheads . The scrap tobacco resulting from handling the leaf was stored in bulk . When it was in sufficient quantity it was then cleaned in a sand reel , dried , and " prized . " Historical significance . The prizery is outstanding under certain criteria of the National Park Service for its distinctive characteristics of a tobacco packing house . The National Park Service points out it is of historical importance because of the association with the nineteenth century events of the village of Appomattox Court House ( then also known as Clover Hill ) and with the site of General Robert E . Lee ' s surrender to General Ulysses S . Grant in April 1865 . Physical description . The Sweeney prizery ( tobacco packing house ) is a single story structure with a loft and full cellar . The building was intended as a residence and prizery . It is about thirty six feet wide by sixteen feet deep . The prizery is built into a bank . The building has a foundation of rough - hewn sandstone that makes up the cellar walls . There is board sheathing on the inside of the exterior weatherboards . The prizery cellar has no external openings except the three on the southeast side of two doors and a paired upward - opening casement . There are two brick external chimneys , one at each gable end . The interior ceilings are unplastered . The supports are heavily whitewashed . The front northwest elevation has two doors . The post - 1865 east porch and " ell " addition was removed in 1959 when first mothballed . The Sweeney prizery was also called the Flood Tenant House and the St . Clair house . The foundation was stabilized in 1959 and again in 1979 . In 1959 there was metal cover sheeting put in place to protect the wood clapboard walls and wooden shingled gable roof .