The Civil War tore the supposedly United States of America in two. There are a thousand tales of
battle, injustice, excitement, and intrigue over the four-year period
that the Union and the Confederacy were battling, but one story is often left out:
How a broken country came back together in the final hours of the bloody war.
Following the Revolutionary War and the establishment of the United States of America,
things were not as perfect and peaceful as the founders might have hoped they would be.
In the mid-19th century, as industry bloomed in the North and cotton and
tobacco farming provided the South with the majority of its economic success,
tensions began to grow. This Southern farming was built on the backs of enslaved people,
and as abolitionist sentiments became more popular, so did criticism of the Southern states.
The Dred Scott decision of 1857 confirmed the legality of slavery in the states,
and the abolitionist John Brown responded with a raid at Harper's Ferry,
West Virginia. The Southern states became increasingly suspicious and hostile toward
the Northern states, until finally, the straw broke the proverbial camel's back.
Abraham Lincoln was elected president in November, 1860. Within three months
of his election, the Southern states of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida,
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, had officially seceded from the United States.
On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces targeted Fort Sumter in Charleston,
South Carolina. They fired the first shots, and the Civil War began. Fort Sumter's commander,
Major Robert Anderson, surrendered and left the fort under Confederate command. More states
joined the Confederacy, including Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
This is how the American Civil War, the deadliest war ever fought on United States
soil, began. But how did it end? Today, we're breaking down the final hours of the Civil War.
The events that would lead to the end of the Civil War began
with General Robert E. Lee's attack on Fort Stedman, near Petersburg,
Virginia on March 25, 1865. On April 1st, General Grant counterattacked,
forcing the Confederate forces to retreat, and driving Lee out of Richmond and Petersburg.
As Lee and his troops traveled Southwest, the general was feeling a mounting sense of
pressure. His men were running dangerously low on supplies,
and they needed to access a train full of supplies sent up from Lynchburg before it
was too late. As Lee and his troops searched for food supplies, General Grant saw an opportunity.
Grant reached out to Lee in a letter on April 7, writing,
"The result of last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on
the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in this struggle...I feel that it is so,
and regard it as my duty to shift from myself any further effusion of blood, by asking of
you the surrender of that portion of the C.S. Army known as the Army of Northern Virginia."
Lee did not share Grant's view of the situation as hopeless,
and pressed on in search of supplies. Though he didn't accept Grant's plea for surrender,
he did ask for more details on the opposing general's offer. He wanted to know the potential
terms...just in case. They continued exchanging letters, as the situation in Appomattox escalated.
Union General Philip Sheridan's cavalry, along with two infantry corp, beat Lee to Appomattox
Station and were waiting for him there when he arrived on April 8, blocking his path forward.
Every day, more and more Confederate soldiers were deserting, and thousands had been captured
by Union forces during the retreat. Now, they were cornered. There were Union cavalry and infantry
in front of Lee and his troops, and two Union corps three miles behind him at New Hope Church.
Confederate Major General John B. Gordon attempted to take on the Union forces,
deploying 9,000 troops in the fields west of Appomattox before dawn on April 9. They
attacked the Union Cavalry, but they would not be able to take the victory without help. Major
General Bryan Grimes of North Carolina managed to push back Sheridan's cavalry,
but more Union soldiers arrived from the west and the south, closing in around Lee's forces.
By 8:00 AM, Gordon's troops had scattered back toward the village, and the cavalry
under Lee's nephew Fitzhugh had fled toward the west. Lee's retreat was well and truly halted,
and with no more supplies, and no way out, he had only one option left: surrender.
Lee gave orders for his men to retreat through the village and across the river,
and between 10 and 11 AM, the Confederate lines were waving white flags. Meanwhile, Lee contacted
General Grant about that offer, and the two agreed to meet to discuss the conditions of surrender.
According to Grant's memoirs, the headache he had been suffering from since the previous night
miraculously dissipated when he received Lee's letter, and he agreed to a meeting. He sent his
response with a staff officer, Orville Babcock, who carried the letter (along
with a flag of truce) behind Confederate lines, where he found Lee resting underneath a tree in
an apple orchard by the Appomattox river. Many soldiers in the area mistook Babcock for Grant,
and incorrectly believed that the surrender meeting was already happening.
But in reality, the meeting's place had not yet been set. Lee rode toward Appomattox courthouse,
and sent his aide, Charles Marshall, ahead to find a place fitting for the meeting of
the generals. Marshall happened upon local man Wilmer McLean, who first offered up
an abandoned house with no furniture. When Marshall summarily rejected this suggestion,
McLean offered his own home instead. They accepted, and the meeting place was set.
Lee arrived at the McLean house at about 1:00 PM, with Grant arriving shortly
after, at around 1:30. Grant was dressed in his field uniform, streaked with mud,
while Lee had dressed up for the occasion in an ensemble complete with a sash and sword.
This was not the first time the two had met, they had once encountered each other briefly
during the Mexican War. Now, they were meeting again, under much more fraught circumstances.
They exchanged brief pleasantries, before getting down to the business at hand. The
two generals had already discussed the terms of surrender in their letters,
and Grant wrote them out in his order book as the two men went over them again.
The terms were as follows: the Confederates would surrender their weapons and other
military property, they would sign paroles, and be allowed to return to their homes. If
these surrendered soldiers did not take up arms again, they would not be prosecuted. No one,
least of all Grant, could be certain what Lee was thinking during this meeting,
but he accepted the terms of surrender, and seemed relieved by them. Before they
were finalized and signed, however, Lee had a few more concerns that he wanted addressed.
Unlike the Union soldiers, the Confederate cavalrymen owned their horses. Lee requested
that these men be allowed to keep their horses, and not surrender them along with
their weapons. Grant agreed, and while he did not add it to the agreement itself, promised to
tell his officers to allow the surrendered men to take their horses home with them.
Lee also raised the matter of food, as his men had been unable to reach any supplies prior to
surrender, and had been without rations for many days. Grant agreed to this as well,
and 25,000 rations were provided to the starving surrendered soldiers. The two
generals agreed to each appoint three officers who would be responsible for
overseeing the details of the parole passes, as well as returning Union
prisoners captured by the Confederates and sending the rations from the Union lines.
By 3 PM that same afternoon, the two generals had signed and exchanged the formal copies of
the letters detailing the terms and acceptance of the surrender. General Lee left the McLean house,
as Grant and his staff followed him out, removing their hats in a gesture of farewell.
Lee returned the gesture, mounted his horse, and rose back toward his camp.
Grant left for his own temporary headquarters, sending a message from Appomattox Station to
President Lincoln, informing him of Lee's surrender. Later that evening,
the six appointed commissioners met at the same house, discussing the particulars of the paroles,
the supplies, and the surrender of weapons and Confederate flags. The next morning at
about 10:00, Generals Grant and Lee met on horseback on the eastern edge of town.
This brief final meeting resulted in three specific decisions:
every Confederate soldier would receive a printed pass, signed by his officers,
to prove he had been paroled, all cavalrymen and artillerymen would keep their horses,
and any Confederates who had to go through Union territory on their journeys home
would be given free transportation on federal railroads and vessels.
On April 12, the fourth anniversary of the firing on Fort Sumter that
kicked off the whole bloody conflict, the formal surrender of arms took place. Many
regard this surrender at Appomattox as the end of the Civil War. However,
the President would not formally declare the war to be over for another 16 months.
Before we get into the details surrounding the months after Lee's surrender, a note on
Wilmer McLean, the man whose house served as the site of Lee and Grant's surrender talks.
The First Battle of Bull Run, regarded as the first major battle of the Civil War,
took place on a farm in Manassas, Virginia. The owner of that farm? Wilmer McLean.
Too old to be conscripted, and wanting to get away from the conflict, McLean moved from
Northern to Central Virginia following this battle, eventually settling in Appomattox.
According to author Joy Hakim, McLean is said to have remarked on this incredible coincidence,
"The war began in my front yard and ended in my front parlor." McLean tried to outrun the
Civil War, but it seems that it caught up to him just the same.
Now, back to the aftermath of Lee's surrender. Though the General's surrender seemed definitive,
it left many confused about just who was included in the terms of his agreement with
Grant. Other Confederate armies were still actively at war, including General Joseph
E. Johnston's army in North Carolina, Lt. General Richard Taylors forces in Alabama,
Mississippi, and Louisiana, Lt. General Edmund Kirby Smith's men west of the
Mississippi, and Brig. General Stan Watie's unit in the Far West.
There was just as much confusion on the Union side as the Confederate. Major General Godfrey Weitzel,
the Union commander in charge of Richmond, reached out to Grant via telegraph and said,
"the people here are anxious that Mosby should be included in Lee's surrender. They say he
belongs to that army." Meanwhile, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton sought clarification
about Confederate forces in Loudoun County, Virginia who belonged to the Army of Northern
Virginia. Grant issued a clarification to Stanton on the night of April 10:
"The surrender was only of the men left with the pursued army at the time of surrender. All
prisoners captured in battle previous to the surrender stand the same as other prisoners
of war, and those who had escaped and were detached at the time are not included. I think,
however, there will be no difficulty now in bringing in on the terms voluntarily given
to General Lee all the fragments of the Army of Northern Virginia,
and it may be the army under Johnston also. I wish Hancock would try it with Mosby."
Chief of Staff Gen. Henry W. Halleck advised Maj. General Winfield Scott Hancock that the
secretary of war wanted the correspondence between Grant and Lee printed and distributed,
and the terms of surrender extended to "all detachments and stragglers from that
army." Those who did not surrender would become prisoners of war if captured. Halleck included
one exception to this offer, "the guerrilla chief Mosby will not be paroled." Mosby did,
however, reach out to Hancock on April 16, offering to meet to discuss an armistice.
The men planned a meeting on April 18,
and a ceasefire began. Mosby stretched out the ceasefire, until April 21,
when he disbanded his unit rather than surrender. He addressed his men, "I disband your organization
in preference to surrendering it to our enemies. I am no longer your commander."
This left the men to their own devices, each free to choose whether or not they would
surrender. As the majority of Mosby's men turned themselves in for parole,
Hancock offered a 2,000 dollar reward for Mosby's capture. Mosby went into hiding near Lynchburg,
Virginia, along with his younger brother. Finally, on June 16, Mosby's parole was
accepted after a direct intervention from Grant, and Mosby turned himself in on June 17.
Something incredibly significant occurred during this time, in addition to the war itself. On
April 15, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln went to the theater, and was assassinated
by John Wilkes Booth. On May 2, new president Andrew Johnson issued a proclamation. It read:
"Whereas it appears from evidence in the Bureau of Military Justice that the atrocious murder
of the late President, Abraham Lincoln, and the attempted assassination of the
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, were incited, concerted,
and procured by and between Jefferson Davis, late of Richmond, Va., and Jacob Thompson,
Clement C. Clay, Beverley Tucker, George N. Sanders, William C. Cleary, and other
rebels and traitors against the Government of the United States harbored in Canada:
Now, therefore, to the end that justice may be done, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, do offer and promise for the arrest of said persons, or either of them,
within the limits of the United States, so that they can be brought to trial,
the following rewards: One hundred thousand dollars for the arrest of Jefferson Davis.
Twenty-five thousand dollars for the arrest of Clement C. Clay. Twenty-five thousand dollars for
the arrest of Jacob Thompson, late of Mississippi. Twenty-five thousand dollars for the arrest of
George N. Sanders. Twenty-five thousand dollars for the arrest of Beverley Tucker.
Ten thousand dollars for the arrest of William C. Cleary, late clerk of Clement C. Clay."
Tensions mounted, and just as the Union troops closed in on Lee and his men back at Appomattox,
the Union was closing in on the Confederacy itself.
Meanwhile, Union General William T. Sherman was hot on the trail of General Johnston's Confederate
Army, chasing them through the Carolinas. Sherman's army marched toward Raleigh,
North Carolina, on April 10, and he learned of Lee's surrender the following day. On April 13,
Sherman's forces officially entered Raleigh, and the next day, Johnston sent a letter,
asking for a suspension of military operations as civil authorities made arrangements to end the
war. On April 17, Sherman and Johnston met face to face near Durham Station, where he offered
Johnston the terms given to Lee at Appomattox. Johnston offered something a bit more ambitious.
Over the course of their talks, Sherman and Johnston discussed an agreement that applied
to any and all Confederate armies still in existence. These troops would surrender
their arms, and return to their state capitals. There, federal courts would be reestablished,
and the people there would be guaranteed their political rights, including the rights
to person and property. Sherman sent this proposition to Grant and Halleck,
stating "if approved by the President of the United States" it would "produce
peace from the Potomac to the Rio Grande." Sherman sent a follow-up to Halleck the same day,
asking that he "please give all orders necessary according to the views the Executive may take,
and influence him, if possible, not to vary the terms at all, for I have considered everything."
Sherman was confident that he had ended the war then and there. He was surprised when he received
an unequivocal rejection from Washington. Sherman met with Johnston once more, and they reached a
new agreement that covered military matters only, without any added political baggage. This time,
it was approved, and the largest Confederate army still standing officially surrendered.
This included the Army of Tennessee, as well as Johnston's forces in North Carolina,
South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. But that still left Confederate troops in Alabama,
Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and the territory that is now Oklahoma.
Other Confederate generals soon followed in Lee and Johnston's footsteps. On May 2,
Lt. General Richard Taylor (son of former US President Zachary Taylor) met with Major
General Edward R.S. Canby in Alabama over an outdoor lunch complete with food, drinks,
and live music. Taylor accepted Canby's terms, the same given to Lee, and surrendered on May 4.
This surrender triggered a domino effect, and more and more generals fell in line.
Jefferson Davis, the Confederate President, was still on the run from
the Union. He was finally cornered in Irwinville, Georgia on May 10,
an event which spurred the surrenders of some small remaining armies in Florida, Georgia,
and Arkansas. But there were some Confederate troops that still held on. Confederate Lt. General
Edmund Kirby Smith of the Trans-Mississippi Department kept the fight going West of the
Mississippi River. He wasn't the only general keeping the fight alive in that region, either.
Union Colonel Theodore Barrett and his men attacked a small Confederate
force under the command of Colonel John S. Ford at Palmito Ranch in Texas on May 12,
1865. Though Ford's force was half the size of Barrett's, Barrett was defeated in the
last battle of the American Civil War. But that Confederate victory would mean little
in the long run, as Smith surrendered his command to the Union on May 26.
After surrendering, the former U.S. Army Officer fled to Cuba,
seeking to avoid prosecution for treason. However, he did return to Virginia in November of the same
year. Though all of the Confederate forces on land had surrendered by the end of the Summer of 1865,
there was one Confederate entity still holding on: the Confederate raider CSS Shenandoah.
The ship had once been a trade ship involved in the Bombay region, but was purchased in
England in 1864 by a Confederate. The ship sailed from England to Madeira,
off the coast of Portugal. There, a Confederate crew led by James I. Wadell secretly replaced
the ship's former English crew members, and the trade vessel was outfitted with all the
accouterment of a warship. Her name, once the Sea King, was changed to the CSS Shenandoah.
The Shenandoah was in Micronesia, nowhere near the United States, when Lee was surrendering at
Appomattox. It continued sailing north through the Pacific Ocean until it reached the Bering
Sea in June. There, Wadell and his crew, not knowing that the war had all but ended,
attacked and destroyed whaling fleets under Union command. By August of 1865,
the Shenandoah had captured or destroyed 38 ships, primarily whalers and merchant vessels.
It was only from a British ship that Waddell learned that the war was over. So,
he sailed the Shenandoah back to her homeland of England, and on November 6,
1865, the very last Confederate surrender took place in Liverpool, England. The ship
was turned in to the British prime minister, who turned it over to the Americans. The ship
never made it to American soil, however, as a storm turned her back. Eventually,
the ship was sold to the sultan of Zanzibar, its Confederate past behind it.
On August 20, 1866, President Johnson issued a proclamation: "Now, therefore, I, Andrew Johnson,
President of the United States, do hereby proclaim and declare that the insurrection
which heretofore existed in the State of Texas is at an end and is to be henceforth so regarded in
that State as in the other States before named in which the said insurrection was proclaimed
to be at an end by the aforesaid proclamation of the 2d day of April, 1866. And I do further
proclaim that the said insurrection is at an end and that peace, order, tranquility,
and civil authority now exist in and throughout the whole of the United States of America."
And with that, the American Civil War came to an official end. Of course, a nation divided
cannot so easily be put back together. The Reconstruction Era that would follow the end
of the war would see tensions boiling over as the country attempted to reintegrate the Confederacy
back into the United States, and reckon with the aftermath of the emancipation of 4 million slaves.
Progress and enfranchisement of newly freed black Americans would be met with violent backlash,
and the eventual emergence of the Ku Klux Klan. The conflict was far from over,
but as for the war itself, the bloody battles,
the gunfire, the states at war with one another, it had finally come to an end.
Now check out “What Life Was Like During the Civil War Sucked.” Or watch this instead!