By April 1865, the Federal armies outnumbered Confederates by nearly 10-to-one. The South was economically and physically destroyed by Federal occupation, and the Federal armies began moving toward a final campaign to end the war. Union restoration efforts began while northerners were horrified by the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
The Fall of Richmond
As Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia attempted to escape Petersburg by moving southwest toward North Carolina, Federals under Philip Sheridan routed the Confederates at Five Forks west of Petersburg. This crushed the Confederate flank and meant that both Petersburg and Richmond had to be abandoned.
Slowly Federal forces advanced until the thin Confederate defenses around Petersburg broke. Famed Confederate General A.P. Hill was killed in the fighting. The remainder of Lee’s army escaped across the Appomattox River and fled west. The Federal Army of the Potomac under Ulysses S. Grant began a pursuit.
Portions of Grant’s army entered Petersburg and the Confederate capital of Richmond. Northerners held massive celebrations as the prized capital was finally captured after four years of war. President Lincoln visited Richmond and sat at the former desk of Jefferson Davis. Confederate government officials fled southwest to Danville, and the city was looted and burned.
The Army of Northern Virginia Surrenders
Lee’s exhausted army staggered west toward Amelia Court House under continuous harassment by pursuing Federals. The rations that were supposed to have been at Amelia did not arrive, and Lee was forced to push his starving men further west. As they moved along five separate routes, the Confederates were routed at Sayler’s Creek, which was the worst defeat ever suffered by the Army of Northern Virginia.
Still Lee was determined to continue. If he could reach Appomattox Court House before the Federals, he had a chance of escaping to North Carolina. However the Federals got there first. After exchanging messages with Grant, Lee decided it was time to surrender his army.
Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox on April 9. The Confederates were allowed to keep their horses and officers could keep their sidearms. All prisoners were released after swearing not to take up arms again. With the surrender of the largest Confederate army, the defeat of the South was virtually sealed. But limited resistance continued at various points.
The Lincoln Assassination
Following Lee’s surrender, President and Mrs. Lincoln attended a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington. During the performance, famed actor John Wilkes Booth crept into the presidential box and shot Lincoln in the back of the head before leaping onto the stage and escaping from the theater. Booth was a Confederate sympathizer who hoped that Lincoln’s death would galvanize the South to fight on. Horrified theatergoers carried Lincoln across the street to a boardinghouse where doctors pronounced his wound mortal.
Abraham Lincoln died the following morning. Northerners who had been celebrating Lee’s surrender were shocked by the news, and a national mourning period began throughout the North. Southerners mourned Lincoln’s death as well, for they knew that the Federals would seek revenge for the act. Succeeding Lincoln was Andrew Johnson, a southern Democrat who was distrusted by most Republicans, particularly the Radicals. This distrust would degenerate into bitter public conflict in the coming years.
The Hunt for John Wilkes Booth
Booth managed to escape Washington and ultimately reach Virginia. He was accompanied by accomplice David Herold. As they sought refuge in a tobacco barn at Bowling Green, Federal authorities closed in on them. The barn was locked as Federals surrounded the suspects and demanded surrender. Herold surrendered but Booth refused.
A Federal soldier set the barn on fire, and another soldier shot Booth through the neck, paralyzing him. The actor was dragged to the farm porch, where he died several hours later. Booth’s body was taken to Washington where investigations continued into others who had conspired with Booth in the murder of Lincoln and the attempted murder of Secretary of State William Seward.
The Army of Tennessee Surrenders
Upon learning that Lee had surrendered, General Joseph Johnston decided that further Confederate resistance was futile and requested surrender terms from Federal General William T. Sherman. Johnston surrendered to Sherman at Durham Station, North Carolina. However Sherman’s terms went far beyond the terms that Grant had given to Lee, and President Johnson rejected the agreement.
Johnston was forced to surrender a second time according to the terms given to Lee. Johnston accepted the terms and surrendered the Army of Tennessee at the Bennett House outside Raleigh. Thus the two largest Confederate armies had now surrendered and the war was nearly over. However Confederate officials, particularly Jefferson Davis, refused to accept defeat and fled southward to continue the fight.
Sources
- Long, E.B. and Long, Barbara: The Civil War: Day by Day (New York, NY: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971)
- Wallechinsky, David and Wallace, Irving: The People’s Almanac (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1975)
- Ward, Geoffrey C.; Burns, Ric; Burns, Ken: The Civil War (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1990)
Walter Coffey - Walter Coffey is a freelance writer who resides in Houston, Texas. Walter has written several works of historical fiction and non-fiction, ...
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