DID YOU KNOW?
General Lee surrendering to Grant
thus ending the Civil War
Then in late 1865 Grant toured the South. By 1866, he was appointed to the newly established rank of General of the armies of the United States. In 1867 Johnson removed Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton and in August appointed Grant interim Secretary of War. When Congress insisted upon Stanton’s reinstatement, Grant resigned (January 1868), thus infuriating Johnson, who believed that Grant had agreed to remain in office to provoke a court decision.
abandon his Petersburg defensive line, and the surrender of Lee’s army followed on April 9 at Appomattox Court House. This surrender, in effect, marked the end of the Civil War.
Anyway, Grant was appointed Lieutenant General in March 1864 and was entrusted with command of all the U.S. armies. His basic plan for the 1864 campaign was to immobilize the army of General Robert E. Lee near the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia, while General William Tecumseh Sherman led the western Union army southward through Georgia. It worked. By mid-June, Lee was pinned down at Petersburg, near Richmond, while Sherman’s army cut and rampaged through Georgia and cavalry forces under General Philip Sheridan destroyed railroads and supplies in Virginia. On April 2, 1865, Lee was forced to
for surrender, Grant replied, “No terms, except unconditional surrender can be accepted. For many, from that point on Grant’s initials would stand for “unconditional surrender.”
Promoted to Major General, Grant repelled an unexpected Confederate attack on April 6–7 at Shiloh Church, near Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee. Before the end of the year, he began his advance toward Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Grant brought about the besieged city’s surrender on July 4, 1863. When Port Hudson, Louisiana, the last post on the Mississippi fell a few days later, the Confederacy was cut in half.
Now, Johnson’s angry charges brought an open break between the