The End At Last - Juneteenth

April 7, 1865 - The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia is racing against hunger and time as they seek to escape the Union Army's capture of Petersburg and Richmond. General Robert E. Lee sent a telegraph down the railroad line for 200,000 rations to be sent ahead. Their only hope now is to outdistance the Federals in a race to Appomattox Station and badly needed rations. 

General Phillip Sheridan got to Appomattox Court House first and placed his immense cavalry corps between Appomattox Station and the Court House, directly across the path of Lee's retreat. A unit under command of the young General George Armstrong Custer took control of the Jetersville station and intercepted the trains carrying Confederate rations. There are no rations on their way to Appomattox.

April 8, 1865 - The splendid Army of Northern Virginia, which quickly became the envy of the world for its courage, heroism and achievement, has been reduced to a fragment of brave men, many of whom, from exposure and want of food, cannot lift a musket to the shoulder. Desertions have intensified with each passing hour.

At 8:30 this morning, General Robert E. Lee could no longer put off the inevitable. He ordered General Longstreet to stop fighting and commenced riding toward the Union front to make arrangements to see General Ulysses S. Grant.

When General Grant finally heard the news, he sent one of his aides forward to arrange a suitable place for the surrender. The Courthouse itself was the most likely place in the village, but, being Sunday, was not open. The Wilmer McLean house, just a few hundred yards away and the most prominent residence in the small village, was then selected.

April 9, 1865 - General Lee arrived at the McLean house first and sat in a large sitting room on the first floor. At about one o'clock, General Grant and his staff arrived. Grant sat at a marble-topped table in the center of the room, Lee at a small oval table near the front window.  General Grant, not yet forty-three years old, five feet eight inches tall, shoulders slightly stooped, was clothed in a uniform that included no marks of rank except a general's shoulder straps.

The formalities were concluded without dramatic accessories. Grant did not demand Lee's sword, as is customary, but actually apologized to him for not having his own, saying it had been left behind in the wagon. He also did not allow the firing of salutes by Union soldiers to mark the event. Grant asked only that the officers and men of the Army of Northern Virginia surrender and give their word not to take up arms against the United States until properly exchanged. Lee accepted the terms. Lieutenant Colonel Ely Parker quietly transcribed the final copy before the two generals scrawled their names.

Lee then conveyed to Grant that his men have been living for the last few days principally upon parched corn and are thereby badly in need of rations and forage. Grant responded that he would send twenty five thousand rations. Lee, ever courteous, shook each man's hand. When he got to Colonel Parker, a Seneca Indian, Lee hesitated, and then extending his hand to Parker said, "I am glad to see one real American here." Parker accepted the proffered handshake, responding, "Today, we are all Americans."

Lee went out to the front porch of the McLean house, mounted his horse, Traveler, and raised his hat in salute as he rode back to his lines. The Union soldiers presented arms in a dramatic show of respect to the soldier and the man. General Lee said to all, “Let us go home and cultivate our virtues.”

April 11, 1865 - Amid the jubilation and celebrations, Lincoln, rather informally from the second floor of the White House, asked the crowd to look forward to the next task at hand – reconstruction – and to accept Louisiana as a model for Southern states to rejoin the Union.  For the first time publicly, Lincoln expressed support to the idea of enfranchising former slaves. In the crowd was a famous and firm supporter of the Confederate cause – John Wilkes Booth. Booth is quoted as saying upon hearing Lincoln’s words: “That means n----r citizenship. Now, by God, I'll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever give.”

Epilogue - A few days later, on April 14, Good Friday, Booth carried out his threat by shooting Abraham Lincoln while he attended the play, Our American Cousin, at Ford's Theatre. The President died the next day. 

That day, General Robert Anderson, who surrendered Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, raised the Stars and Stripes over Fort Sumter, assisted by none other than Frederick Douglass.

Lincoln’s open coffin lay in state at the White House on the 18th and was then moved to the U.S. Capitol rotunda on the 21st.  After public viewing in Washington, DC, Lincoln’s coffin was placed on a funeral train, along with the remains of his son Willie, headed for his final resting place in Springfield, Illinois. 

The route followed the one taken by president-elect Lincoln when he departed his hometown for his inauguration as the 16th President. The trip covered 1,654 miles through 180 cities and seven states to allow the Northern public an opportunity to pay their last respects. 

News of Lee's surrender slowly made its way to Johnston and Sherman in North Carolina. On April 17, the two commanders met in Durham Station, North Carolina, to discuss terms. At first, Sherman offered more generous terms than were offered by Grant to Lee. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, embittered by Lincoln's murder, refused to approve the terms. On April 26, Johnston surrendered his 37,000 men on the same conditions as those given to Lee at Appomattox Court House.

Only two sizable Confederate armies remained. One was in Louisiana, led by General Richard Taylor, brother-in-law of Jefferson Davis and son of President Zachary Taylor. He surrendered on May 4.  The other army was in Texas and commanded by General Edmund Kirby Smith.  Smith surrendered on May 26. 

On May 10, Jefferson Davis was captured in Georgia and immediately imprisoned.

The last battle of the Civil War occurred in Cameron County, Texas on May 12 to May 14. Native, African, and Hispanic Americans were all involved in the fighting. The Confederates won.

Not all parts of the country learned of the war’s end and slavery’s abolition. In Texas, it was not until June 19th when Major General Gordon Granger landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and all slaves were now free. 

The last Confederate surrender occurred in Liverpool when the Confederate warship CSS Shenandoah arrived there on November 7, 1865. The Shenandoah was also responsible for firing the last shot of the American Civil War at a whaler off the Aleutian Islands in June 1865.

On December 6, 1865, the Georgia legislature ratified the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, becoming the 27th state out of 36 to do so, thereby meeting the three-fourths requirement of the Constitution. Secretary of State Seward, on December 18, 1865, certified that the Thirteenth Amendment had become valid, “to all intents and purposes, as a part of the Constitution.”

Oregon, California, Florida and Iowa quickly followed suit. Delaware and New Jersey were the only Northern states to reject the amendment. New Jersey finally ratified it in 1866. Delaware did so in 1901. Kentucky did not ratify it until 1976; Mississippi did in 1995.

Ten percent of all Northern men aged 20-45 died, along with 30 percent of all Southern white males aged 18-40. It has been estimated that over 1 million horses were killed during the war.

In 1879, the Civil War was estimated by Congress to have cost approximately $10 billion, not including the cost of soldier pensions. Adjusting that for inflation and population difference, it would yield a 2020 equivalent of about $3 trillion.