The fighting of the eastern theater of the American Civil War between Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the Potomac and General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia ended with Lee's surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865. Lee's army had fought a series of battles in the Appomattox Campaign against Grant that ultimately stretched his lines of defense thin. His troops became exhausted defending this line because they were too spread out. Grant then took advantage of the situation and launched attacks on this 30-mile, poorly defended front.
At 8:30 a.m. the morning of April 9, Lee requested a meeting with Grant. Lee, rode into the little hamlet of Appomattox where the Appomattox county courthouse stood and waited for Grant's arrival to surrender his army. The terms were as generous as Lee could hope for: His men would not be imprisoned or prosecuted for treason. In addition to his terms, Grant also allowed the defeated men to take home their horses and mules to carry out the spring planting, and provided Lee with a supply of food rations for his starving army, which Lee emphasized would have a favorable effect on the Confederate men and go great lengths toward reconciling the country. The terms of surrender were recorded in a document completed around 4 p.m. on April 9.
Appomattox Court House, VA.
Federal soldiers at the courthouse, April 1865.
The second and last major stage in the peace-making process, concluding the American Civil War, was the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston and his armies to Major General William T. Sherman on April 26, 1865, at Bennett Place. Johnston's Army of Tennessee was among nearly 100,000 Confederate soldiers that were surrendered from North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. The conditions of surrender were laid out in a document called, "Terms of a Military Convention," signed by Sherman, Johnston, and Grant at Raleigh, North Carolina.
Other Confederate generals surrendered in the following days and weeks as the news from Appomattox reached them. The last land battle of the Civil War took place near Brownsville, Texas, on May 12. The Cherokee Confederate Indians were the last significant Confederate active force to surrender on June 23. The last Confederate surrender occurred on November 6, 1865, when the Confederate warship CSS Shenandoah surrendered at Liverpool, England. President Andrew Johnson formally declared the end of the war on August 20, 1866.
On May 10, 1865, Union cavalrymen captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis after he fled Richmond, Virginia, following its evacuation in the early part of April. On May 5, 1865, in Washington, Georgia, Davis held the last meeting of his cabinet. At that time, the Confederate government was declared dissolved. The Confederate president was subsequently held prisoner for two years in Fort Monroe, Virginia.
A panoramic image of the parlor of the reconstructed McLean House in Appomattox Court House National Historical Park as seen in August 2011
McLean House was originally built by Charles Raine in 1848, and was the site of the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia to the Union Army on April 9, 1865. Ulysses S. Grant sat at the simple wooden table on the right while Robert E. Lee sat at the more ornate marble-topped table on the left.
The Second American Revolution
Many Confederate supporters viewed secession of the South as part of a larger tradition of American revolutionary ideals. Ironically, the greatest change to come as a result of the American Civil War that followed Southern secession was the end of slavery. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which established the freedom of slaves in the 10 states in rebellion. Then on December 6, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was adopted, which officially outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude in all U.S. states and territories. Many historians now characterize the Civil War as a fulfillment of the Declaration of Independence’s promise that “all men are created equal.”
The Aftermath
The outcome of the Civil War had great implications not only for Southern society, but also for the Southern economy. The collapse of the plantation economy after the abolition of slavery and increase in world production of cotton as well as the increasing influence of Northern Republicans in Southern affairs led to greater industrialization, the rise of larger city centers, and the development of infrastructure such as railroads, banks, and factories. However, progress was slow in the wake of the destruction that war wrought. Three percent of the total United States population had been injured or killed during the Civil War, two-thirds of which were a direct result of disease. In fact, the Civil War resulted in approximately the same number of American deaths as all other U.S. wars combined to present day, making the period of Reconstruction that followed a remarkable yet often difficult chapter in American history.