History can be ironic. One particularly ironic story comes from the American Civil War, a particularly ironic conflict. At the center of this tale is a common fellow named Wilmer McLean. Wilmer McLean lived near Manassas, Virginia on an estate along the Bull Run creek. He was a grocer by trade. Then, the Civil War began. The Confederate and Union armies assembled themselves along the Bull Run and on July 18, 1861 there was a skirmish between the two forces. The Confederates called this engagement “Bull Run” but the Union troops referred to it as the battle of Blackburn’s Ford. It was during this small skirmish that the McLean house was caught up on the fighting. A cannonball flew down the McLean chimney and into their kitchen. As one might expect, McLean decided to move his family away from the fighting and he did so after the First Battle of Manassas (Union name: First Bull Run).
The McLean family moved to a small town called Appomattox Station, Virginia. The Old McLean place remained embattled. It was fought for during the Second Battle of Manassas (Union name: Second Bull Run) and again during the Gettysburg campaign when J.E.B Stuart’s artillery fought a withdrawing action on the McLean farm as the Confederates retreated following the loss at Gettysburg. McLean thought that the war was behind him and he and his family lived peacefully at Appomattox Station for a good three years.
Then, on April 9, 1865, the Civil War caught up with Wilmer McLean. He was simply taking a nice Sunday walk when he was greeted by a Confederate officer. The young Confederate asked Wilmer if he knew of a place suited for General Lee to meet with the Union general Grant. McLean took the officer to a small, vacant building in the center of the town. The officer, named Charles, was skeptical. He asked if there were “some other place” that might be better furnished and therefore better suited for such a monumental meeting. Wilmer took him home to his parlor. Charles promptly agreed that this was the place. Orville Babcock arrived from General Grant’s staff and soon Grant himself followed him. The surrender was prompt and it was finished by four o’clock in the afternoon. Robert E. Lee admitted, “There is nothing left for me to do but go and see General Grant and I would rather die a thousand deaths.”
Immediately after the surrender, McLean was accosted by souvenir seekers. They threw money in his face, “buying” his parlor furniture. General Phillip Sheridan “bought” his parlor table, on which the surrender had been negotiated and other tables and various pieces of furniture were “bought” from the frazzled grocer. Burke Davis, author of The Civil War: Strange and Fascinating Facts records the chaos that McLean experienced after the surrender. “Some officers, chiefly of cavalry, tried to buy chairs used by Lee and Grant, and when they were refused, took them off on horseback…Upholstery was cut to ribbons.”
Wilmer McLean moved his family because the war’s first large battle practically began in his front yard. The war ended in his ransacked parlor. This is the ironic tale of Wilmer McLean.