apr 9, 1865 - The Surrender at Appomattox
Description:
Six days earlier, Union troops had successfully conquered Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy. General Robert E. Lee of the Confederacy and General Ulysses S. Grant of the Union met in Appomattox Court House, a Virginia town, to arrange the Confederacy's surrender. Lincoln had requested that the terms of the surrender be generous, so as to prevent inciting another war. Grant gave Lee's soldiers parole and allowed them to go home with their possessions, including side arms, and three days worth of rations. All Confederate resistance ended within a month after this arrangement, effectively ending the Civil War after four years. However, the generous terms and gentle reproach of the surrender allowed for the South to find loopholes and continue to mistreat the former slaves, without much interference from the North, scared of setting off another terrible war. In the end, because of the North's leniency and the South's freedom to do as they wished, it could be argued that the South was the true winner of the Civil War, especially since the lives of slaves had actually not entirely improved all that much, despite being freed.
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