The Union general had gone to Sheridan's headquarters before riding up to the McLean house. Sheridan and his staff had gone on with him. Least important of the little group of Union officers who followed Grant into the presence of Lee was Tom Strong, but the boy's heart beat as high as that of any man there. [Illustration: THE McLEAN HOUSE, APPOMATTOX COURTHOUSE] It was in the orchard about the house that the myth of "the apple-tree of Appomattox" was born. Millions of men and women have believed that Lee surrendered to Grant under an apple tree at Appomattox. That apple tree is as famous in mistaken history as is that other mythical tree, the cherry tree which George Washington did not cut down with his little hatchet. Washington could not tell a lie, it is true, but he never chopped down a cherry tree and then said to his angry, questioning father: "Father, I cannot tell a lie; I cut it down with my little hatchet." That fairy story came from the imagination of one Parson Weems, who did not resemble our first President in the latter's inability to tell lies. Perhaps the myth of the apple tree will never die, as the myth of the cherry tree has never died. In 1880, when Grant's mistaken friends tried to nominate him for a third Presidential term, other candidates had been urged because this one, it was said, could carry Ohio, that one Maine, and so on. Then Roscoe Conkling of New York strode upon the stage to nominate Grant and declaimed to a hushed audience of twenty thousand men: "And if you ask what State he comes from, Our sole reply shall be: HE comes from Appomattox And the famous apple tree!" The twenty thousand were swept off their feet by the magic of that myth. Grant was almost nominated--but not quite. The historic interview began in the room to the left of the front door in the McLean house. Two very different figures confronted each other. Grant had not expected the meeting to take place so soon and had left the farmhouse where he had spent the night before in rough garb. He writes: "I was without a sword, as I usually was when on horseback in the field, and wore a soldier's blouse for a coat, with the shoulder-straps of my rank to indicate to the army who I was.... General Lee was dressed in a full uniform, which was entirely new, and was wearing a sword of considerable value, very likely the sword which had been presented by the State of Virginia.... In my rough traveling suit, the uniform of a private with the straps of a lieutenant-general, I must have contrasted very strangely with a man so handsomely dressed, six feet high and of faultless form. But this was not a matter that I thought of until afterwards."