"I received your note of this morning on the picket-line, whither I had come to meet you and ascertain definitely what terms were embraced in your proposal of yesterday with reference to the surrender of this army. I now ask an interview in accordance with the offer contained in your letter of yesterday for that purpose."

Grant agreed to meet with Lee late that afternoon at the home of Wilmer McLain. Upon their mutual arrival at the McLain House, the two generals briefly engaged in small talk harkening back to their days together under Gen. Zachary Taylor's command in the Mexican War, before Lee cut the discussion short by suggesting that they get down to the business at hand. Much to the surprise of Lee's staff, Gen. Grant proved magnanimous in victory, and offered surprisingly generous terms to the beaten rebels:

"I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia on the following terms, to wit: Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate, one copy to be given to an officer to be designated by me, the other to be retained by such officer or officers as you may designate. The officers to give their individual paroles not to take up arms against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged; and each company or regimental commander sign a like parole for the men of their commands. The arms, artillery, and public property to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the officers appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to his home, not to be disturbed by U. S. authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside."

The reason for that unexpected generosity, unbeknownst to the Confederate officers accompanying Lee at the time, was rooted in a brief exchange between President Abraham Lincoln and Union Gen. Godfrey Weitzel only five days earlier, which had taken place in the now-occupied Confederate capital of Richmond.

Union Col. Thomas Thatcher Graves, writing in his journal, described in vivid detail the humble but triumphant early-morning arrival of President Abraham Lincoln in the captured city:

"The next day after our entry into the city, on passing out from Clay Street, from Jefferson Davis's house, I saw a crowd coming, headed by President Lincoln, who was walking with his usual long, careless stride, and looking about with an interested air and taking in everything. Upon my saluting he said: 'Is it far to President Davis's house?' I accompanied him to the house, which was occupied by General Weitzel as headquarters.

"The President had arrived about 9 o'clock, at the landing called Rocketts, upon Admiral Porter's flag-ship, the Malvern, and as soon as the boat was made fast, without ceremony, he walked on shore, and started uptown. As soon as Admiral Porter was informed of it he ordered a guard of marines to follow as escort; but in the walk of about two miles they never saw him, and he was directed by negroes.

"At the Davis house, he was shown into the reception-room, with the remark that the housekeeper had said that the room was President Davis's office. As he seated himself he remarked, 'This must have been President Davis's chair,' and, crossing his legs, he looked far off with a serious, dreamy expression. At length he asked me if the housekeeper was in the house. Upon learning that she had left he jumped up and said, with a boyish manner, 'Come, let's look at the house!'

"We went pretty much over it; I retailed all that the housekeeper had told me, and he seemed interested in everything. As we came down the staircase General Weitzel came, breathless in haste, and at once President Lincoln's face lost its boyish expression as he realized that duty must be resumed. Soon afterward Judge Campbell, General Anderson (Confederates), and others called and asked for an interview with the President. It was granted, and took place in the parlor with closed doors.

"I accompanied President Lincoln and General Weitzel to Libby Prison and Castle Thunder, and heard General Weitzel ask President Lincoln what he (Gen. Weitzel) should do in regard to the conquered people. President Lincoln replied that he did not wish to give any orders on that subject, but, as he expressed it, 'If I were in your place I'd let 'em up easy, let 'em up easy.'"
-- McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: the Civil War Era, Oxford University Press, New York (1988).

The U.S. Civil War wasn't quite over yet, for Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and his Army of Tennessee were still retreating in force through North Carolina, desperately trying to avoid being cornered by Union Gen. William T. Sherman and the pursuing U.S. Army of the Cumberland. And further, they wouldn't yet be compelled by Sherman to lay down his arms until April 26, 1865.

By that time, Abraham Lincoln would be lying in state at the New York State Capitol in Albany, the fifth stop of a 16-day-long funeral procession across a country in mourning for its martyred president. The funeral train bearing his body had departed Washington D.C. three days after his April 15 assassination at Ford's Theatre, and would eventually arrive in his hometown of Springfield, IL on May 4, 1865.

Mary Lincoln had acceded to the request of Illinois officials that her husband's remains be brought home to the state capital for internment, but only on condition that the body of their son Willie -- who had died in Washington of typhoid fever three years earlier -- be allowed to accompany his father on one final journey together. Father and son were eventually laid to rest side by side in Springfield's Oak Ridge Cemetery on May 24, 1865.

But on this particular day 150 years ago, Virginia -- the biggest and most powerful of the eleven seceding states which constituted the rebel alliance -- had finally been brought to heel and subdued by federal troops, and the long-pending outcome of four years of bloody internecine conflict was now fully assured.

The Confederacy was vanquished, even if some of the issues underscoring its primary reason for its brief existence continue to haunt us still.

In this age of increased documentation of brutal police, does that make him one of the "good" ones?

Would Scott's having possession of the taser reach the legal level of validating the cop's reasonable belief of danger of significant bodily harm or death to himself?

Then, from the video, it seems pretty clear that when Scott turned to run, the taser and something else simultaneously hit the ground. (Maybe the taser broke? Maybe it had some sort of case or attachment or something that got separated before the pieces hit the ground?)

Anyway, as it seems the taser was the core of the tussle at that point in time, I would assume that the cop saw the taser hit the ground and/or could see that Scott no longer had the taser in his hand as Scott turned and ran, before the cop started firing.

There's no telling what the transplant - and all the new connections and foreign chemicals that his head and brain will have to suddenly deal with - will do to Spiridonov's psyche, but as Hootan puts it rather chillingly, it "could result in a hitherto never experienced level and quality of insanity".

Here is a link so that you can actually hear Johnson saying that last quote above.

The fact that the country could be hurt by being kept in the dark was shunted aside in favor of protecting not only Nixon, but the spy program that discovered Nixon's nefarious actions. (Presumably FBI wire taps.)

I know it is putting gasoline on the fire to say it, but this puts me in mind of Obama's call to "move on", instead of launching a full investigation into what Bush and Cheney knew and when they knew it.