The front page of The New York Times on April 15, 1865.
April 1865
By Phil Kohn
Phil Kohn can be reached at USCW160@yahoo.com
Despite orders to hold the position “at all hazards,” 10,000 Confederates under Maj. Gen. George Pickett are routed by 10,000 of Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan’s cavalry and 17,000 infantry under Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren at Five Forks, Virginia, on April 1, 1865. Almost half the Southerners are taken prisoner. Gen. Robert E. Lee’s ability to hold the Petersburg line is compromised and his escape route from Petersburg is threatened. In Alabama, Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Confederates, outnumbered almost 3-1, are unable to fend off Brig. Gen. James Wilson’s 14,000 Union cavalrymen at Ebenezer Church. The next day, despite strong defensive action, Forrest yields Selma and its arsenal; over 2,700 of his men are captured. Forrest and his remaining troops escape to the west while Wilson continues eastward. In the Pacific Ocean, the Confederate raider CSS Shenandoah puts in at Ponape, in the Eastern Caroline Islands, and captures four U.S.-flagged whaling vessels that are being re-supplied there.
Surmising that Gen. Lee has weakened his force by moving troops to defend Five Forks, Lt. Gen. Grant on April 2 orders an attack on Confederate positions all along the Petersburg line. The Confederates hold fast, but Lee alerts President Davis that he must move his army, and that Richmond must be given up. That night, Lee’s troops withdraw to the north through Petersburg and then head west. His intent is to try to link up with Gen. Joseph Johnston’s force in North Carolina. Around 11 p.m., while Richmond is being evacuated by civilians and the military, Jefferson Davis and members of his Cabinet depart on a special train to Danville, Virginia. The center of the city goes up in flames as withdrawing Confederate soldiers put cotton, tobacco and military supplies to the torch. Winds fan the flames and spread embers, resulting in whole sections of the city being gutted by fires.
On April 3, Lt. Gen. Ulysses Grant, accompanied by President Lincoln, enters Petersburg, Virginia, while, 21 miles north, Union troops begin occupying Richmond and work to put out the fires that are still burning from the previous night. In Alabama, Wilson’s Union cavalry clashes with elements of Forrest’s Confederates outside of Tuscaloosa but the Federals prevail.
The next day, April 4, Abraham Lincoln tours the Virginia capital, walking through the streets of the ruined city to the cheers of Union soldiers and many blacks. He enters the White House of the Confederacy, where he stops for a rest, sitting in a chair in Jefferson Davis’s office. From Danville, Virginia, Jefferson Davis issues a proclamation admitting to the loss of Richmond. He states that the struggle is entering a new phase, and that Southerners should not abandon the fight. Farther north in Virginia, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia clashes with pursuing Federals at Tabernacle Church and Amelia Court House. Expected supplies do not materialize at the latter place and Lee’s men must forage for food in the countryside. Lee’s force is now squeezed between Maj. Gen. George Meade’s Army of the Potomac coming from the east and Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan’s strong cavalry force in the west and south.
Still in Richmond, Virginia, on April 5, Lincoln meets with Confederate Assistant Secretary of War John Campbell, who was one of the peace commissioners with whom he met on February 3. Lincoln reiterates to Campbell that he will not back down on the abolition of slavery and that to gain peace the South will have to submit to the authority of the federal government. In Washington, D.C., Secretary of State William H. Seward is seriously injured in a carriage accident and is confined to his bed. Gen. Robert E. Lee keeps his army moving westward, towards Farmville, Virginia, hoping to find food and supplies there for his army.
On April 6, as Lee’s army approaches Farmville, Virginia, it inadvertently splits into two groups, each heading in different directions. Union cavalry strikes the divided Confederates at Sayler’s Creek, capturing 8,000 Confederates.
On April 7, Tennessee becomes the 20th state to ratify the 13th Amendment (banning slavery), as a pro-Union government there approves the measure. In Virginia, Lt. Gen. Grant sends Gen. Lee a message asking him to surrender his army to prevent “any further effusion of blood.” Lee responds by asking what the terms of such a surrender would be.
Near Mobile, Alabama, the Confederate defenders of Spanish Fort, besieged by Federal troops under Maj. Gen. Edward Canby, slip away on the night of April 8 and avoid being captured. President Lincoln, who has been in the Richmond-Petersburg area of Virgina since March, returns to Washington, D.C. At Appomattox Court House, Virginia, Lt. Gen. Grant responds to Gen. Lee’s query regarding surrender, noting that his one condition is “that the men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified from taking up arms against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged.” Although his staff is divided as to what course of action to take, Lee decides not to surrender. In the morning, he will try to break through the Union troops blocking his way.
Early on April 9, Lee’s Confederates attack the Union lines in front of them. They break through the cavalry but can’t penetrate the massive infantry presence behind the horsemen. The infantry in his front begins advancing while, at the same time, a large Union force behind him starts pushing in his rear guard. Caught between the two large Federal forces and outnumbered by more than two to one, Lee realizes the futility of continuing to fight. In the afternoon, Gen. Robert E. Lee meets with Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, and surrenders the remaining 26,735 soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia. After signing the surrender documents, Lee returns to his men, telling them: “Go to your homes and resume your occupations. Obey the laws and become as good citizens as you were soldiers.” In Alabama, Union troops capture Fort Blakely, another fortification protecting Mobile.
Hearing of Lee’s surrender, Jefferson Davis and his remaining Cabinet depart Danville, Virginia, on April 10, heading for Greensborough, North Carolina. A detachment of Federal cavalry, raiding nearby, burns a bridge on the Danville-Greensborough line, but misses the train carrying Davis and his entourage by less than 30 minutes. In Alabama, with Spanish Fort having been abandoned two days earlier and its protection now gone, Confederate troops withdraw from Mobile. In Washington, D.C., a crowd of around 3,000 people led by a brass band gather around the White House, demanding that President Lincoln make a speech commemorating the surrender of Robert E. Lee. The president appears and promises that he will make a speech tomorrow. He asks the band to play “Dixie,” saying that it has always been one of his favorite songs.
On April 11, President Lincoln, as promised the day previously, addresses a crowd gathered outside the White House, urging, among other things, that reconstruction plans remain flexible. The speech will be his last public address.
A formal surrender ceremony is held at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 12. Neither Grant nor Lee attend. The Confederate surrender is led by Maj. Gen. John B. Gordon. Accepting the surrender (including arms and battle flags) is Union Maj. Gen. Joshua Chamberlain. Jefferson Davis, in Greensborough, North Carolina, meets with Gens. Pierre Beauregard and Joseph Johnston to discuss options for continued resistance. Neither of the soldiers is optimistic of success in continued fighting. Farther south, Federal cavalry under Maj. Gen. George Stoneman burns Salisbury, North Carolina, including its warehouses and prisoner-of-war camp. In Alabama, Union troops move into Mobile, the city having been abandoned by Confederate troops two days earlier. The capture of Mobile has cost over 1,500 Federal lives and comes at a time, Ulysses Grant will later write, “when its possession was of no importance.” Farther north, Brig. Gen. James Wilson’s Federal cavalry occupies Montgomery, Alabama, the state capital.
The next day, April 13, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s Union troops occupy Raleigh, North Carolina, the state capital. In Washington, D.C., President Lincoln halts the draft and downsizes requisitions for war supplies.
Arkansas becomes the 21st state to ratify the 13th Amendment, on April 14. The Amendment, which will ban slavery in the U.S. must be ratified by 27 states, 75% of the 36 states in the Union. The same day, amidst considerable ceremony, the U.S. flag is raised over the rubble that remains of Ft. Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, four years after being hauled down by the Confederates. In the evening, while attending a performance of the farcical play Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, Abraham Lincoln is shot in the head by actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. Simultaneously, an attempt is made on the life of Secretary of State William Seward by an accomplice of Booth. Seward — still confined to his bed as a result of his carriage accident earlier in the month — is stabbed several times. He is saved by a plaster cast and the efforts of his son and a male nurse, who overcome his attacker. Seward is only wounded. Vice President Andrew Johnson was also to be killed, but his would-be assassin got drunk, lost his nerve and never made the attack. In the Central Pacific Ocean, CSS Shenandoah departs the Eastern Caroline Islands and heads for the Kurile Islands, which lie northeast of Japan.
Abraham Lincoln dies of his wounds on the morning of April 15, and Vice President Andrew Johnson is subsequently sworn in as the 17th President of the U.S. In North Carolina, after Jefferson Davis departs Greensborough on horseback for Charlotte, Gen. Joseph Johnston — having been authorized by Davis to do so — sends a flag of truce to Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman and inquires about surrendering his Confederate troops.
Brig. Gen. James Wilson’s Union cavalry, moving eastward, on April 16 clashes with Confederates belonging to Lt. Gen. Nathan Forrest at Crawford and Opelika, Alabama. The Federals push through and, crossing into Georgia, capture Columbus and West Point in that state.
On April 17, Joseph Johnston and William Sherman meet at Durham Station, North Carolina, and reach an agreement that not only covers the surrender of Johnston’s troops but provides liberal terms for reconstruction of the South.
Sherman and Johnston meet for a second day on April 18 and hammer out the details of a broad peace agreement that calls for a cessation of hostilities, a general amnesty for all Southerners and recognition of Southern state governments once their officials take oaths of allegiance. Johnston forwards details of the accord to Jefferson Davis. Sherman — confident that the terms of the agreement are consistent with the wishes of Abraham Lincoln as stated when Sherman, Grant and Porter met with the president aboard the vessel River Queen at City Point, Virginia, on March 27 — forwards the terms of the tentative pact to Washington for approval.
Funeral services for President Lincoln are held in the White House on April 19, after which his casket is transported in a long, solemn procession to the Capitol Building. There, the public is able to pass the open coffin as the body of the slain president lay in state in the building’s rotunda. President Davis arrives in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he learns of Lincoln’s assassination. Davis receives a letter from Lt. Gen. Wade Hampton, in charge of the Army of Tennessee’s cavalry, urging that the Confederacy continue fighting from west of the Mississippi, using guerrilla tactics. Union Maj. Gen. John Pope, commanding the Department of the Northwest, writes to Gen. E. Kirby Smith, commandant of the Confederate Department of the Trans-Mississippi, suggesting a surrender of all Southern troops west of the Mississippi on the same terms offered to Gen. Lee.
Gen. Robert E. Lee, perhaps hearing of Wade Hampton’s proposal, on April 20 writes to President Davis stating that he is opposed to continuing hostilities and strongly feels that all fighting should be ended.
In Washington, D.C., President Lincoln’s casket is moved from the Capitol’s rotunda on April 21 and placed aboard a special funeral train that will make its way to Springfield, Illinois, where the president is to be interred. In Virginia, Col. John S. Mosby — the famed, or infamous, “Gray Ghost” — disbands his group of Confederate partisans. In Washington, President Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, tells an Indiana delegation that he does not believe the Southern states ever left the Union, a position definitely not in alignment with that of Radical Republicans.
In Alabama, Brig. Gen. James Wilson’s Union cavalry captures the town of Talladega on April 22.
The next day, April 23, Wilson’s cavalry clashes with Confederates near Munford’s Station, Alabama. In North Carolina, near Henderson, Confederates attack the cavalry of Maj. Gen. George Stoneman. The actions end up being minor skirmishes.
On April 24, Lt. Gen. Ulysses Grant arrives at Raleigh, North Carolina, and meets with Maj. Gen. William Sherman. Grant informs Sherman that President Johnson, Secretary of War Stanton and Republican Congressional leaders have rejected the agreement Sherman has made with Johnston. Sherman is stung to find out that he has been severely criticized for exceeding his authority. Grant orders that Sherman is to resume hostilities unless there is a clear surrender by Johnston. Grant emphasizes that Sherman is to deal only with military matters and must not get involved with political ramifications. Word is sent to Johnston that fighting will resume in 48 hours. On his end, Gen. Johnston, unaware of what has been happening on the Union side, receives approval from President Davis of the peace agreement that had been struck. Skirmishing erupts between Confederate Indian troops and Federal soldiers near Boggy Depot in the Choctaw Nation of Indian Territory.
Having received word that their peace accord has been rejected, and that hostilities will resume, and with his army rapidly shrinking due to desertions, Gen. Johnston on April 25, requests another meeting with Maj. Gen. Sherman to discuss peace terms.
On April 26, under less-generous terms than initially agreed upon (but terms essentially offered to Gen. Lee), Gen. Joseph Johnston surrenders the roughly 30,000 Confederate troops under his command to Maj. Gen. Sherman at Durham Station, North Carolina. The same day, in a tobacco barn in Port Royal, Virginia, Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth is shot and killed by Federal soldiers who have been tracking him. At Charlotte, North Carolina, President Davis meets with the members of his Cabinet who are still with him. They agree to leave the state and try to get west of the Mississippi River.
The steamboat Sultana — carrying former Union prisoners of war up the Mississippi River to their home states — is destroyed on April 27 when three of its boilers explode north of Memphis. Although the ship has a legal capacity of 375 passengers, it is grossly overloaded, with between 2,100 and 2,300 men aboard. The exact death toll is unknown, but estimates are between 1,700 and 1,900, making the explosion and burning of the Sultana the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history.
Having decided to attempt to reach Florida and then to travel by boat to Texas, Jefferson Davis and the remaining members of his Cabinet still with him reach Yorkville (now York), South Carolina, about 27 miles southwest of Charlotte, North Carolina, on April 29.
On April 30, at Magee’s Farm, north of Mobile, Alabama, Maj. Gen. Edward Canby meets with Gen. Richard Taylor to discuss the surrender of all Confederate troops within Taylor’s Department of East Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.
