1865
After a month’s rest at Savannah, Sherman on February 1 started northward to strike through the Carolinas and join Grant in Virginia for the final blow against Lee. Sherman’s major opposition was the remnant of the Army of Tennessee, which had been placed again under the command of Gen. Joseph Johnston.
Johnston could offer but feeble resistance to Sherman. Federal troops occupied Charleston and were in Columbia when the latter was gutted by fire. On March 10 Sherman’s forces seized Fayetteville in central North Carolina, brushed back part of Johnston’s army six days later at Averysboro, and successfully withstood a Confederate attack at Bentonville (March 19-21).
Meanwhile, Grant had been mustering his forces for a grand drive against Lee’s weak defenses. Throughout the long siege of Petersburg Grant had slowly extended his lines farther to the south and west. Lee had no choice but to stretch his own meager defenses accordingly. Soon the Southern defenses were dangerously overextended.
This was the situation which Grant had sought. On April 1 he attacked Lee at Five Forks, sixteen miles southwest of Petersburg. The Confederate line bent and then broke. That night the Army of Northern Virginia abandoned the Richmond-Petersburg trenches and slowly moved westward in retreat. At the same time President Davis transferred the Confederate capital to Danville near the North Carolina border, Lee’s major hope was to rendezvous at Danville with Johnston’s army, then falling back in the face of Sherman’s advance. Together, Lee speculated, he and Johnston might be able to defeat first Sherman and then Grant.
This April, 1865, photograph shows the gutted business district of Richmond. The prominent building in the center was the Confederate capitol.
The dream quickly faded. As Lee’s army plodded westward, Grant’s divisions snipped at its heels at Amelia Court House (April 4-5), Sailor’s Creek (April 6), High Bridge (April 7), and Farmville (April 7). On April 8, near Appomattox Court House, Lee found the way blocked by massed infantry and cavalry under Sheridan. The Confederates were surrounded. On Palm Sunday, April 9, Lee surrendered to Grant. Three days later, 28,000 Confederates in the Army of Northern Virginia stacked their muskets before silent lines of Federal soldiers.
Lee’s surrender left Johnston with no place to go. On April 26, near Durham, N. C., the Army of Tennessee laid down its arms before Sherman’s forces. With the surrender of isolated forces in the Trans-Mississippi West on May 4, 11, and 26, the most costly war in American history came to an end.
