Following Lee 's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House and the assassination of President Lincoln , Sherman met with Johnston in mid-April at Bennett Place in Durham , North Carolina , to negotiate a Confederate surrender . At the insistence of Johnston and of Confederate President Jefferson Davis , Sherman conditionally agreed to generous terms that dealt with both political and military issues . Sherman thought that those terms were consistent with the views Lincoln had expressed at City Point , but the general had not been given the authority , by General Grant , the newly installed President Andrew Johnson , or the Cabinet , to offer those terms
assassination of President Lincoln
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
William Tecumseh Sherman