The conclusion of the American Civil War commenced with the articles of surrender agreement of the Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at the Virginian village of Appomattox Court House, by General Robert E. Lee and concluded with the surrender of on November 6, 1865, bringing the hostilities of the American Civil War to a close.Heidler, pp. 703–706. Legally, the war did not end until a proclamation by President Andrew Johnson on August 20, 1866, when he declared "that the said insurrection is at an end and that peace, order, tranquillity, and civil authority now exist in and throughout the whole of the United States of America". The Confederate government being in the final stages of collapse, the war ended by debellatio, with no definitive capitulation from the rapidly disintegrating Confederacy; rather, Lee's surrender marked the effective end of Confederate military operations. The Confederate cabinet held its final meeting on May 5, at which point it declared the Confederacy dissolved, ending its substantive existence; despite this, some remnant Confederate units did not surrender for another month.
Lee's defeat on April 9 began the effective end of the war, after which there was no substantial resistance, but the news of his surrender took time to spread and some fighting continued, though only small skirmishes. President Abraham Lincoln lived to see Lee's surrender after four bloody years of war, but he was assassinated just five days later. The Battle of Columbus, Georgia, was fought on April 16, the day after Lincoln died. For the most part though, news of Lee's defeat led to a wave of Confederate surrenders. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrendered his large Army of Tennessee and the Southeastern Department on April 26. The Confederate cabinet was dissolved on May 5, and Confederate president Jefferson Davis was captured by Union soldiers on May 10, one day after Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, declared that the belligerent rights of the Confederacy were at an end, with the rebellion effectively over.
The Battle of Palmito Ranch was fought on May 12–13. The last large Confederate military department, the Trans-Mississippi Department, surrendered on May 26, completing the formalities on June 2. The last surrender on land did not come until June 23, when Cherokee Confederate General Stand Watie gave up his command at Doaksville, Choctaw Nation. At sea, the last Confederate ship, CSS Shenandoah, did not surrender until November 6. It had continued sailing around the world raiding vessels until it finally received news of the end of the war. Shenandoah also fired the last shots of the war on June 22. By April 6, 1866, the rebellion was declared over in all states but Texas. Finally, on August 20, 1866, the war was declared legally over, though fighting had been over for more than a year by then.
The end of slavery in the United States of America is closely tied to the end of the Civil War. As the main cause of the war, slavery led to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in the Confederacy as Union troops advanced. The last slaves in the Confederacy were not freed until June 19, 1865, now celebrated as the national holiday Juneteenth. After the end of hostilities, the war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in a partially successful attempt to rebuild the country and grant civil rights to freed slaves.
April
Although President Abraham Lincoln lived to see the effective end of the war, he did not live to see it through to its conclusion. Assassin John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln on April 14, 1865, and he died the next morning. Lincoln's death was a shock to both North and South.Sandburg, Carl. Abraham Lincoln: The War Years IV. Harcourt, Brace & World, 1936. Unaware of Lee's surrender on April 9 and the assassination on April 14, General James H. Wilson's Raiders continued their march through Alabama into Georgia. On April 16, the Battle of Columbus, Georgia was fought. Columbus fell to Wilson's Raiders about midnight on April 16, and most of its manufacturing capacity was destroyed on the 17th. Confederate Colonel John Stith Pemberton, the inventor of Coca-Cola, was wounded in this battle, which resulted in his obsession with pain-killing formulas, ultimately ending in the recipe for his celebrated drink.
The first major stage in the peacemaking process was Lee's surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865.Catton, A Stillness at Appomattox, pp. 294–295, 339, 365–366. This, coupled with Lincoln's assassination, induced Johnston to act, believing: "With such odds against us, without the means of procuring ammunition or repairing arms, without money or credit to provide food, it was impossible to continue the war except as robbers."Snow, p. 301. On April 17 Sherman and Johnston met at Bennett Place, and the following day an armistice was arranged, with terms discussed and agreed upon. Grant had authorized the surrender only of Johnston's forces, but Sherman exceeded his orders by providing very generous terms. These included that the rebel states be immediately recognized after their leaders signed loyalty oaths; that property and personal rights be returned to the Confederates; the reestablishment of the federal court system; and that a general amnesty be given. On April 24, authorities in Washington rejected Sherman's proposed terms; two days later, Johnston agreed to the same terms Lee had received previously on April 9.Eicher, Longest Night, pp. 834–835.
The next 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, in Durham, North Carolina.Katcher, p. 184. Johnston's Army of Tennessee was among nearly one hundred thousand Confederate soldiers who were surrendered from North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. The conditions of surrender were in a document called "Terms of a Military Convention" signed by Sherman, Johnston, and Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant at Raleigh, North Carolina.Bradley, p. 270.
General Johnston surrendered the following commands under his direction: the Department of Tennessee and Georgia; the Army of Tennessee; the Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida; and the Department of North Carolina and Southern Virginia.Eicher, Civil War High Commands, p. 323. In doing so, Johnston surrendered to Sherman around 30,000 men. On April 27 his adjutant announced the terms to the Army of Tennessee in General Orders #18, and on May 2 he issued his farewell address to the Army of Tennessee as General Orders #22.Snow, p. 302. The remaining parts of the Florida "Brigade of the West" surrendered with the rest of Johnston's forces on May 4, 1865, at Greensboro, North Carolina.
On May 4, 1865, Union Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck proposed "to issue an order that all armed men in Virginia who do not surrender by a certain date shall be held as outlaws and robbers."United States War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Series 1, Volume 46, Part 3. p. 1082. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1895. This was approved by Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Secretary of War Edwin M. StantonUnited States War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Series 1, Volume 46, Part 3 pp. 1091–1092. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1895. and Halleck issued General Orders No. 6, Military Division of the James, on May 6, 1865, effective from May 20, 1865. The order stated that "all persons found in arms against the authority of the United States in the State of Virginia and North Carolina, will be treated as outlaws and robbers."
May and June
Confederate President Jefferson Davis fled Richmond, Virginia, following its evacuation in the early part of April 1865. On May 5, 1865, in Washington, Georgia, Davis had held the last meeting of his Cabinet. At that time, the Confederate government was declared dissolved.Korn, pp. 160, 162. The meeting took place at the Heard house, the Georgia Branch Bank Building, with 14 officials present. Despite the fact that there were still small pockets of resistance in the South, the president declared that the armed resistance was "virtually" ended and that nations or ships still harboring fugitives would be denied entry into U.S. ports. Persons found aboard such vessels would no longer be given immunity from prosecution of their crimes. Premised on the surrender of all Confederate Armies east of the Mississippi River, on May 11, 1865, Gen. Grant issued General Orders No. 90 from the War Department stating "That from and after the first day of June, 1865, any and all persons found in arms against the United States, or who may commit acts of hostility against it east of the Mississippi River, will be regarded as guerrillas and punished with death."United States War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Series 1, Volume 46, Part 3, p. 1134. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1895. The Battle of Palmito Ranch was fought on May 12 and 13.
Camp Napoleon Council (May 26, 1865)
The Native American tribes of the Indian Territory realized that the Confederacy could no longer fulfill its commitments to them. Therefore, the Camp Napoleon Council was called to draft an agreement to present a united front as they negotiated a return of their loyalty to the United States. Native American tribes further west, many of them also at war with the U.S. Army, were also invited to take part, and several of them did.Alan C. Downs. "Camp Napoleon Council," Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Accessed August 23, 2015.
At the end of the meeting, on May 26, 1865, the council appointed commissioners (no more than five for each tribe) to attend a conference with the U.S. government in Washington, D.C., at which the results of the Camp Napoleon Council would be presented and discussed. However, the U.S. government refused to meet with such a large group representing so many tribes. Furthermore, the government regarded the Camp Napoleon meeting as unofficial and unauthorized. President Johnson later called for a meeting at Fort Smith (called the Fort Smith Council), which was held in September, 1865.Perry, Dan W. "A Foreordained Commonwealth" , Chronicles of Oklahoma 14:1 (March 1936) 22–48 (retrieved February 5, 2017)
Trans-Mississippi Department
Confederate leaders asked General Kirby Smith to send reinforcements from his Army of the Trans-Mississippi to east of the Mississippi River in the spring of 1864 following the Battle of Mansfield and the Battle of Pleasant Hill. This was not practical due to the Union naval control of the Mississippi River and the unwillingness of western troops to be transferred east of the river. Smith instead dispatched Major General Sterling Price and his cavalry on an invasion of Missouri that was ultimately not successful. Thereafter the war west of the Mississippi River was principally one of small raids.
By May 26, 1865, a representative of Smith's negotiated and signed surrender documents with a representative of Major General Edward Canby in Shreveport, Louisiana, then took custody of Smith's force of 43,000 soldiers when they surrendered, by then the only significant Confederate forces left west of the Mississippi River. With this ended all organized Southern military resistance to the Union forces. Smith signed the surrender papers on June 2 on board just outside Galveston Harbor.Cotham, pp. 181–183.