150 years ago: last sparks of the Civil War

[Capitaine Vengeur 263]

The week 150 years ago was fertile with two among the most depicted events in the iconography of the quite short History of the United States. On 9 April 1865, 150 years ago today, General Robert Lee surrendered at Appomatox Courthouse the remnants of the main Rebel army, just one week after the fall of the Confederate capital city of Richmond that Lee had failed to screen. His Army of Northern Virginia numbered at that time one third of the strength it had at its apex, fighting now at 1 to 4 against Union forces in full supply. General Grant's fairness at Appomatox showed there the seeds of the national reconciliation he wished for post-war.

 

Just re-elected President Lincoln, who had grown much more older than the 4 years the War lasted, did not live enough to see it fully extinguished. On 14 April, he was mortally shot by a Rebel fanatic, beginning a dramatic list to 1981 of US Presidents shot by dissatisfied morons.