On April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House, Ulysses S. Grant accepted Robert E. Lee’s surrender, hailed in newspapers as “The End.” But was this truly the end of the Civil War? Or did it end 10 weeks later in Galveston, when a federal commander announced Juneteenth and the abolition of slavery? Or in August 1866, when President Andrew Johnson declared, “the insurrection is at an end”?
Historian Michael Vorenberg, whose research was a key source for Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, examines the complex and often overlooked aftermath of the Civil War, challenging the assumption that the conflict concluded with Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Vorenberg explores lingering questions about when and how the war ended, uncovering a prolonged struggle that persisted in various forms, particularly in the former Confederacy and the trans-Mississippi West.
Vorenberg reveals how the forces that sparked the war endured, thwarting efforts to achieve a lasting and just peace. He surveys the bloody and turbulent period following Appomattox—characterized by guerrilla warfare, insurgency, and political upheaval—and examines the contested and evolving meaning of freedom. Vorenberg concludes that the peace Lincoln envisioned but could not achieve before his assassination required many endings, the most significant of which came well over a year after his death.
Vorenberg’s book Lincoln's Peace: The Struggle to End the American Civil War (Knopf) is available for purchase.
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