Today is April 9,
and on this date in history, in 1865, during the American Civil War, Robert E.
Lee and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia surrendered at Appomattox
Court House, Virginia. This was the decisive point but the war dragged on for
several more months.
Another
large Confederate army under Joseph Johnston surrendered on April 26, 1865, in
North Carolina. The last Confederate general to surrender, the American Indian,
Stand Watie, surrendered in the Indian Territory in late June of 1865. Smaller
groups fought on but finally gave up.
The last Confederate naval force to surrender was
the CSS Shenandoah, a commerce destroyer, that gave up in Liverpool, England, in
November, 1865. The war was over.
