|
|
Article: Unconditional Surrender
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
came into the American political lexicon during the Civil War, when the Union General Ulysses Simpson Grant rejected a request for negotiations and demanded the "unconditional surrender" of the Confederate-held Fort Donelson, Tennessee, in 1862. U. S. Grant's strict terms became his nickname.
Since then, every major international war to which the United States was a party was ended by a negotiated settlement, except for World War II. In that conflict, the Allies' demand that the Axis powers surrender unconditionally, first announced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt at a Casablanca summit meeting with British Prime Minister Winston ...