apr 9, 1865 - The Surrender of the Confederate Army

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On this day in history, General Robert E. Lee and his Confederate Army surrendered to the Union at the Appomattox Court House. This freed the African Americans living in an oppressed and cruel state, and also commenced the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. Although this can be seen as the end of the civil war, it was not the official end of the civil war.
Here, Trevor K. Plante (1) clarifies this misunderstanding, "While it was the most significant surrender to take place during the Civil War, Gen. Robert E. Lee, the Confederacy's most respected commander, surrendered only his Army of Northern Virginia to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. Several other Confederate forces... had yet to surrender before President Andrew Johnson could declare that the Civil War was officially over," (Plante 1). Plante is simply justifying how it was not the official end of the civil war, but symbolized the fall of the Confederacy. That is significant, because with the fall of the Confederacy, the end of slavery would follow, angering many White Supremacists, and leading to the creation of the K.K.K.

(1) Trevor K. Plante is an archivist for the National Archives and Records Administration. In other words, he works for the government.

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