General Orders, No. 51 by (GENERAL ORDERS -- CIVIL WAR). STANTON, Edwin M - 1865

Hilton Head, SC: Headquarters, Department of the South, 1865. Handbill. Small 8vo (5" X 8"). Near fine. This General Order, signed in type by Major-General Quincy Adams Gillmore under the blanket authorization date of 29 April 1864, transmits an order from Secretary of War Stanton sent to all of the various commands. Dated April 9, the date of Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, it reads: "Ordered:--That a salute of two hundred guns be fired at the headquarters of every army and department, and at every post and arsenal in the United States, and at the Military Academy at West Point, on the day of the receipt of this order, in commemoration of the surrender of General R.E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia to Lieutenant-General Grant and the Army under his command...." Single word penned at upper left ("Major"?) in a light brown ink of the period. Accompanied by a modern (ca. 1965) 8½" X 11" heavy stock reproduction titled "The Surrender," being "A true reproduction of a primitive painting found... in the back country of North Carolina after having been lost for nearly ninety years. The artist was obviously an eyewitness of a certain event occurring April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia.... Compliments of Bell Irvin Wiley and Seale Johnson." Fine. Odd keepsake produced by the well-known Civil War historians.