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Grant and Lee had to look far into the future, said Wilson. "They knew that the energies that had been given to divisions for so many years would have to be devoted to rebuilding the country. There was no vindictiveness."
“格兰特和李一定是着眼于未来的，”威尔逊说，“他们知道多年来分裂国家的力量必将用来重建这个国家。他们彼此都没有仇恨。”
Three people were strongly alive to me there. Two of them, Lee and Grant, continued to radiate powerful qualities that Americans still honor: one, symbolizing nobility and the aristocratic tradition of the old South, and the other symbolizing the self-made common man of the new North, Midwest and West.
在我看来，有三个人发挥了重要作用。其中两位，李和格兰特，他们身上仍然散发着美国人民至今仍引以为荣的人格魅力：一个象征着尊严和古老南方贵族的传统，而另外一个象征着新北部、中西部以及西部普通民众的自立、自强。
The third person was the inescapable Lincoln. Appomattox was, finally, his show. I could almost see him standing over the little table in the McLean house where Grant sat scribbling his terms. I knew that Lincoln had often spoken of wanting a merciful peace, but I didn't know whether he and Grant had found time to discuss it. Ron Wilson said they had met just two weeks earlier—on the River Queen, in the James River—and had talked at length about the rapidly approaching end of the war and the disarray it was bound to bring.
第三个人无疑就是林肯，阿波马托克斯的和解最终是他策划的。我仿佛看见他正站在麦克莱恩的小桌旁，格兰特就坐在那儿，潦草地写着条款。我知道林肯经常提到渴望一个仁慈的和平，但我不知道他和格兰特是否找时间讨论过此事。罗恩·威尔逊说他们在受降前两周见过面——在詹姆斯河的“大河女王”号轮船上——曾长时间讨论过战争即将结束和可能带来的混乱。
You just know, Wilson told me, "that Lincoln said, 'Let'em down easy.'"
“你要知道，”威尔逊告诉我，“林肯说过‘让他们有尊严地投降!’”
