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General
William T. Sherman, 1864
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In
November 1864 Union General William T. Sherman and his army
of 60,000 set out from Atlanta on their March to the Sea. After
cutting a sixty-mile-wide swath of destruction through Georgia,
Sherman captured Savannah in December. He then turned north,
hoping to link up with Grant, who since June had besieged Lee's
army at Petersburg.
Sherman
had not yet reached Virginia when, on April 2, 1865, Grant broke
through Lee's lines, forcing the Army of Northern Virginia to
abandon Petersburg and leaving Richmond defenseless. The following
day, Union soldiers, including a black unit, occupied the Confederate
capital.
Meanwhile, Lee headed west, only to be cut off by Grant's army.
Realizing further resistance was useless, Lee surrendered his
army on April 9 at Appomattox Court House. Although some Confederate
units remained in the field, the Civil War was over.
Lincoln did not live to savor the victory. On Good Friday, April
14, the president was mortally wounded by the actor John Wilkes
Booth. He died the next day. After a circuitous 1,600-mile rail
journey through the Northern states, Lincoln's body was laid
to rest in Springfield, Illinois.
As the war ended, Americans shared a sense of having lived through
events that had transformed their world. "The youngest
of us," said abolitionist Wendell Phillips, "are never
again to see the republic in which we were born."
