Lee then Retreated

When Lee then retreated, Grant took advantage of the opportunity to capture Richmond and place it under a siege. This was one of the final events of the war, because of the fact that the Confederate Capital was now under Union hands. After capturing Richmond, Grant pursued Lee at a town called Appomattox Court House.

This battle was one of the battles that ended the war, because of the result. Lee was planning on getting supplies from North Carolina because, at that point, his soldiers were starving.

This battle gave Lee no other option but to surrender. Grant, in fact, was very peaceful with the surrender terms, so in effect, Lee was actually willing to surrender. After this battle, the war was technically over; technically it hadn’t stopped everywhere, but it was the major ending battle. The Civil War had ended, and the fighting was over. On the night of April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was at Ford’s theater for a performance. The soon-to-be murderer John Wilkes Booth was steps away from Lincoln and waited for the perfect moment to strike.

One of the actors in the play, Harry Hawk, had delivered a funny line, causing a lot of laughter. Booth then used this opportunity to shoot Lincoln in the back of the head with the pistol that he had, which only had one bullet. After the scene in the presidential box, Booth jumped onto the stage, fracturing his ankle. Booth then yells several lines to the audience, which include Sic Semper Tyrannus! (Thus always to tyrants!) and The South is avenged! One witness, W.J. Ferguson, had mentioned that it had been less than half a minute(www.fords.org/lincolns-assassination) since the pistol shot was fired. Booth then manages to get away on a horse. Booth’s diary was then found after he died on April 26 that same year, and he wrote I struck boldly and not as the papers say, (www.fords.org/lincolns-assassination) which is him giving an inaccurate list of events that happened. This comes to prove how the conflict hadn’t ended although the physical destruction of cities did.

When the South had seceded from the Union, they had to create a government. They then called the area of which seceded states were in the Confederate States of America. In a government, there are officials, and of course, a president. The president of the Confederate States of America was Jefferson Davis. Throughout the war, Davis made many speeches that were written down for future generations. When Union General Grant was fighting Lee in front of the Confederate capital, the Confederate government was soon to collapse. Eventually, Grant placed Richmond under a siege, which caused them to surrender, leaving the capital of the Confederate government under Union hands, putting an end to it. The Civil War was one of the most remembered wars in the United States. This is because of the fact that it was the deadliest war between ourselves, and it caused a lot of destruction.

Throughout the entirety of the war, both Union and Confederate generals made the destruction of major cities a central feature in a part of their strategies. The main reason for this strategy is due to the belief that the destroying of a widespread property would damage the morale of civilians. This proves two things, the first being that Sherman’s March lowered morale in the South. It also proves why there was so much destruction by the end of the war. An example is The Fall of Atlanta. This happened to boost Lincoln’s reelection campaign. In turn, Southerners’ morale was then lowered because of the fact that Sherman, who believed in total war, burned the city. Also, when Sherman completed his march, a destruction path of 60 miles wide was left behind for 285 miles, from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. It wasn’t only Sherman who believed in total war. Many other generals, Union and Confederate, believed in it too, so it just further shows how much destruction was left after the Civil War.

In result, the ending of the Civil War is all tied up. That basically means that every event leads to the next event. It all began when Grant was fighting Lee in Petersburg, and he had control of the entire Union army, so he secured the victory no matter how big the casualties. Lee then had to retreat, but he could not go South thanks to General Sherman, who burned Atlanta and destroyed anything in his path on the 285-mile march from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. In effect, Lee then retreated to a town called Appomattox Court House. Grant then sieged and captured Richmond, which led to the collapse of the Confederate government.

He then pursued Lee in Appomattox Court House. At this battle, Lee had no choice but to surrender, but the good thing for him was that Grant’s surrender terms were very peaceful, and it told Lee to go to the supply train that he had been going for in the first place to feed his starving men. The surrendering of the Confederate army then led to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, and at that point, the South’s conflict was ongoing, even though the war was basically over. The Civil War ended to be one of the deadliest wars ever recorded. The death tolls are over the number of deaths in any other war combined. Many lives were lost and many faced mortal injuries. Overall, the fight wasn’t for nothing, because both sides were fighting for one cause, that being slavery.

Did you like this example?

1092

46