Wilmer McLean
“And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, from east to west, making a very large valley; half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south.” [Zechariah 14:4]
In the early afternoon on April 9, 1865, Wilmer McLean stood on the front porch of his two-story brick house. General Robert E. Lee arrived first on horseback that day, accompanied by Colonel Charles Marshall. Wil greeted the two Confederate officers and invited them into his parlor. At about 1:30 p.m., General Ulysses S. Grant arrived on horseback. Among his Union officers were Major General George Armstrong Custer, and Captain Robert Todd Lincoln, son of President Lincoln.
For about an hour and a half, General Lee and General Grant talked until they finally agreed on the terms of surrender for the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, which, in effect, ended the long, bloody Civil War. While Lee and Grant were conferring, Wil McLean waited outside the house where, we can only surmise, he must have thought about the very strange hand of fate that brought this historic event to his home.
Meeting in Wil’s home was especially unusual because, at the outset of the Civil War in 1861, Wil was a farmer living in northern Virginia with his family. The beginning of the war had struck very close to home. In fact, a cannon ball from the first battle landed in his kitchen. Concerned for the safety of his family, Wil moved them from the war zone to central Virginia and eventually bought a home at Appomattox Court House. The first battle of the Civil War, known as the First Battle of Bull Run, fought on July 21, 1861, took place on Wil McLean’s farm. In one of the strangest and most unusual twists of fate, the Civil War started in Wilmer McLean’s back yard in 1861 and ended in his parlor in 1865!
In similar fashion, the Bible teaches that the last spot that Jesus’ feet touched the earth when He left – the Mount of Olives – will be the very spot He places them when He arrives with the New Jerusalem to establish His eternal kingdom of peace on this earth.
