Wilmer McLean was a wholesale merchant who wanted absolutely nothing to do with the American Civil War. In July 1861, Confederate General P. G.
T. Beauregard commandeered McLean's plantation home in Manassas, Virginia, to serve as his headquarters. During the First Battle of Bull Run, a Union artillery shell crashed right through McLean's kitchen fireplace, ruining dinner for Confederate officers and kicking off the war's first major land battle.
Deeply disturbed by the violent disruption, McLean decided to pack up his family and move over 120 miles south to escape the conflict. He settled in the tiny, remote village of Appomattox Court House, Virginia, confident that the war would never reach him there. Fate, however, possessed a surreal sense of irony.
By April 1865, General Robert E. Lee was surrounded and needed a place to surrender his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant.
A Confederate officer approached McLean on the street asking for a suitable venue. After McLean reluctantly showed them an empty house with no furniture, he finally offered his own well-appointed parlor. On April 9, 1865, Grant and Lee met in McLean's living room to sign the surrender terms, effectively ending the conflict.
To top off the ordeal, opportunistic Union officers immediately stripped McLean's parlor for souvenirs, throwing money at him as they carried away his tables, chairs, and personal belongings. McLean later famously remarked, 'The war began in my front yard and ended in my parlor.'