Interesting history on his actions at the Surrender of Lee.   "Among the mementos presented to President Rutherford B. Hayes while he was in the White House was a lead pencil alleged to have been used in the composition of the surrender terms at Appomottox on April 9, 1865. An E. H. Bailey sent this pencil to the President. In a letter, written presumably to a member of the White House staff in which he offered to give the pencil to President Hayes, Bailey stated that he was on the piazza of the McLean House while the generals were in conference and that "after they left the room I took the liberty of confiscating the pencil."1When Bailey forwarded the pencil to President Hayes, he attached to it the following notarized note:I certify in honor that the pencil attached to this paperformerly belonged to Genl. Robert E. Lee and was usedby Genls Grant and Lee in drawing up the rough draftof the terms of surrender. E H BaileyMajor & Provost Marshall C.C. John J.. Vorhis, a notary public, notarized the note on May 8, 1880 in Washington, D. C.2When Thomas A. Smith, Head of Research at the Hayes Presidential Center, asked me to investigate and determine, if possible, the authenticity of this item and its donor, it offered me an interesting opportunity to engage in some historical detective work. Dusting off some of my rusty tools of the trade, I proceeded to tackle the problem.Some of the questions posed by this little puzzle came immediately to mind. First, was the rough draft of the surrender terms written in pencil? Second, who was E. H. Bailey? Third, was Bailey at Appomottox on April 9, 1865 as he alleges? Fourth, who were the individuals present either inside outside the McLean House at the time of the surrender by Lee, and fifth, was this a or the pencil used by Grant and/or Lee? What historical sources then should or would one check for answers to the questions posed and any others?I began by consulting existing diaries, memoirs, and reminiscences of the individuals in the room at the McLean House when the terms of surrender were drawn up. Next I consulted the pertinent volumes of the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion. This did not prove very fruitful except to identify the existence of a Major Ezra H. Bailey. Once I had identified Bailey beyond a question of doubt, which shall be discussed later, I turned to histories by or reminiscences of members of the military unit to which Bailey belonged.Biographies of participants in this historic event and other secondary sources rendered some assistance in finding source materials. For example, when Mr. Smith asked me to undertake this enterprise, I went immediately to the four volume biography of Robert E. Lee by Douglas Southall Freeman to find what he recorded about the Appomattox meeting. Freeman notes the use of a pencil but more to the point, he cites the source of his information to which I shall return later.3To verify conclusively the use of a pencil by Grant to write the rough draft of the surrender terms, I turned to the memoirs of Grant. In volume II of these memoirs can be found a facsimile copy of the draft. It clearly shows that a pencil was used to rough out the surrender terms.4Next I moved to the problem of the identification of E. H. Bailey. Since he signed the notarized note attached to the pencil "Provost Marshal C.C.," it can be deduced that Bailey had been provost marshal of a cavalry corps. A first step, however, to identifying E. H. Bailey was a search made of the directory for the District of Columbia for 1880. This was done on the basis that Bailey had dated his letter offering the pencil to Hayes "City 4/5/80/." That directory as well as the succeeding ones for 1881, 1882 and 1883 listed an Ezra H. Bailey as a resident of Washington, D. C. In the directory for 1880 he was listed with the title of major and in 1881 as colonel.5Proceeding on the assumption that this Ezra H. Bailey was our man and that he served in the cavalry during the Civil War, I then requested from the National Archives the military and pension records of Ezra H. Bailey. The military records confirmed that he [Ezra H. Bailey] served as an officer in the First New York (Lincoln) Volunteer Cavalry - the first volunteer union cavalry unit formed in the war. This record further documents that Bailey was appointed provost marshal of the cavalry corps of the Army of the Potomac late in the war. By that time he had risen from the rank of lieutenant to that of major.6To secure more details on the military career of Bailey during the Civil War, I next sought to determine if any histories or reminiscences existed on the First New York (Lincoln) Cavalry. They did, namely, William H. Beach’s The First New York (Lincoln) Cavalry and Jas. H. Stevenson’s "Boots and Saddles": A History of the First Volunteer Cavalry of the War Known as the First New York (Lincoln) Cavalry....Beach states that Bailey wrote reminiscences of his war experiences for the press late in his life but to date these have not been located.7 The military records of Bailey and the two works on the First New York (Lincoln) Cavalry clearly indicate that there was an officer in the cavalry named Ezra H. Bailey who in April 1865 was a major and a provost marshal.Was this Bailey at Appomattox and the McLean House at the time of the surrender of Lee on April 9, 1865? According to his testimony in the letter offering the pencil to President Hayes, E. H. Bailey was not only there but on the piazza of the house at the time. What corroborating evidence can be provided to support this claim and also to prove that the Ezra H. Bailey of the military records and histories of the First New York (Lincoln) Cavalry and the letter writer are one and the same?Since Major Bailey was provost marshal of the cavalry corps under the overall command of General Philip H. Sheridan, he undoubtedly was a member of Sheridan’s staff. If this is correct, then the following would bear out his presence at Appomattox and also being on the piazza as he asserts. George A. Forsyth in his Thrilling Days in Army Life records "While the conference between Generals Grant and Lee was still in progress, Generals Merritt and Custer of the Cavalry Corps, and several of the infantry generals, together with the rest of General Sheridan’s staff-officers came up on the porch."8Both Stevenson and Beach in their histories of the First New York Cavalry note the presence of Bailey in the vicinity of Appomattox. Stevenson wrote: "On the morning after this battle [Saylor’s Creek on April 5, 1865], while prisoners under Major Bailey, who was provost marshal of the cavalry corps, were getting ready to march to the rear, Custer’s division emerged from their bivouac, and passed them at a canter."9Beach stated: "The next morning [after the battle of Saylor’s Creek], as many of the captured officers, including Ewell and his generals, were standing in a group under the care of Major Bailey, provost marshal, whose manly and chivalric ways always won him favor, General Custer passed near the group on his way to the front where there was yet work to be done."10 We can be thus reasonably certain that Major Ezra H. Bailey was at Appomattox on April 9, 1865. Since the "E. H. Bailey who sent the letter and the notarized note concerning the pencil signed the latter "E. H. Bailey, Major and Provost Marshal C.C.," I am convinced that we have our man clearly identified and at Appomattox.Let us now return to the matter of the pencil and Bailey’s claim that it was the pencil used by Grant and Lee. In his letter offering the pencil to President Hayes as a memento, Bailey wrote: "The pencil belonged to Genl Lee but was used by both Generals, and left on the table on which they were writing by Genl Lee when he left the room." He repeated this affirmation in the notarized note attached to the pencil when it was later sent to the President.