After Robert E. Lee's troops were cut off from supplies and surrounded by the Union forces, surrender was inevitable. Lee's role in the surrender from this difficult position was to ask Ulysses S. Grant what the terms of surrender would be. For his part, Ulysses S. Grant wanted to begin the process of healing the nation at Appomattox. While a natural reaction would be to approach the surrender by gloating and punishing the South, Grant offered fairly lenient terms for the Army of Northern Virginia. He granted a full pardon to all of the soldiers and officers and even printed pardons for them to take back home with them. He allowed the officers to keep their sidearms, but all weapons of war were to be surrendered by the soldiers. The Union also fed the starving Confederate troops before sending them home to begin the process of rebuilding.
Does anybody know the etymology of the phrase "sweet dreams"? I tried googling but did not find anything satisfying. Is this a relatively new phrase of the modern world or has this been in use for some time? I think it's the latter one. Answer The OED has the interjection as "a farewell to someone going to bed" from the 20th century: 1908 Sears Roebuck Catal. 198/1 Tenor Solos..Good Bye, Sweet Dreams, Good Bye. But it goes back until at least the 19th and possibly 18th centuries. John Wolcot, writing under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, used it in his poem "Orson and Ellen; A Legendary Tale" published in 1801: Also from 1801 in The infernal Quixote (Page 287) by Charles Lucas: In the March 1776 of The Universal Magazine was published "The Serenade. A Pastoral Tale. From the German of Gesner" , where the shepherd Daphnis watches over his beloved as she sleeps and sings: The same tale appears in 1776's as Idyl XI, " Daphnis ...
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