[donmeaker]

When Lee had to abandon his baggage, he picked out his best uniform, sacrificing the others to the G-ds of Battle. Meanwhile Grant rode all night through muck and mire, driving his men to cut off Lee’s army before they could escape to the mountains.

Lee did not go alone, but rather, took his staff. A good thing too, as none of Grant’s staff had the office supplies needed to document the offer of surrender and its acceptance.

And the Union generals forbad celebrations which would rub salt into the wounds of the rebels, since after all, they were our countrymen again.

[nathanbedford]

Yes he took a staff, I think of two, but he did not take an entourage. Rather, he took responsibility.

Equally, he took responsibility in declining his subordinates suggestion to filter his men out through Yankee lines to begin to wage a guerilla. I have described this in my about page to emphasize the moral character of the man about whom I often assert, "the noblest and sublimest American of them all." When we came out of the McLean house having executed the articles of surrender as he waited for Traveler to be brought to him he was alone as he clapped his hands together and exclaimed, "too bad, too bad, oh too bad." None of these actions were consistent with a vainglorious, splendidly uniformed commander.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Also throughout the war, Lee very rarely wore his dress frock coat, sword, and side arm. Usually, he was seen riding around in a simple gray sack coat (with three colonel's stars), indigo blue trowsers, and a faded, unadorned black Hardee hat, like in this Troiani painting: