Bedford Forrest. That morning, Buckner sent a messenger to the Union Army requesting an armistice and a meeting of commissioners to work out surrender terms. He may have been hoping Grant would offer generous terms, remembering the assistance he gave Grant when he was destitute, but Grant's reply was curt. Sending his aide Colonel William Hillyer to deliver a dispatch in person, Grant's reply included his famous quotation, "No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works." To this, Buckner responded: The asperity of these notes was only superficial; Buckner greeted his old friend warmly when Grant arrived to accept the surrender. They joked about their time in Mexico and the incompetence of General Pillow. Grant offered to loan Buckner money to see him through his impending imprisonment, but Buckner declined. As mentioned above, Buckner had paid for then-Captain Grant's lodging in New York City after the Mexican War when Grant was destitute. As evidence of their mutual respect, Buckner later acted as a pall bearer and paid for Grant's funeral in 1885, as well as provided Grant's widow a financial monthly payment so she could live out her years. The surrender was a humiliation for Buckner personally, but also a strategic defeat for the Confederacy, which lost more than 12,000 men and much equipment, as well as control of the Cumberland River, which led to the evacuation of Nashville. Invasion of Kentucky While Buckner was a Union prisoner of war at Fort Warren in Boston, Kentucky Senator Garrett Davis unsuccessfully sought to have him tried for treason. On August 15, 1862, after five months of writing poetry in solitary confinement, Buckner was exchanged for Union Brig. Gen. George A. McCall. The following day he was promoted to major general and ordered to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to join Gen. Braxton Bragg's Army of Mississippi. Days after Buckner joined Bragg, both Bragg and Maj. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith began an invasion of Kentucky. As Bragg pushed north, his first encounter was in Buckner's home town of Munfordville. The small town was important for Union forces to hold if they wanted to maintain communication with Louisville while pressing southward to Bowling Green and Nashville. A small force under the command of Col. John T. Wilder guarded the town. Though vastly outnumbered, Wilder refused requests to surrender on September 12 and September 14. By September