Ending the Bloodshed: The Last Surrenders of the Civil War
Posted on April 9, 2015 by Mary
Spring 2015 Prologue coverThis post was originally published as an article by Trevor Plante in the Spring 2015 issue of Prologue magazine. Trevor K. Plante is chief of the Reference Services Branch at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. He is a supervisory archivist who specializes in 19th- and early 20th-century military records and is an active lecturer and a frequent contributor to Prologue.
Appomattox.
To many Americans the word Appomattox is synonymous with the end of the Civil War.
The war, however, did not officially conclude at that tiny village west of Petersburg, Virginia. But what happened there in early April 150 years ago certainly marked the beginning of the end for the Confederacy.
After the fall of Richmond, the Confederate capital, on April 2, 1865, officials in the Confederate government, including President Jefferson Davis, fled. The dominoes began to fall. The surrender at Appomattox took place a week later on April 9.
https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2015/04/09/ending-the-bloodshed-the-last-surrenders-of-the-civil-war/
