Within two months of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House on 9 April 1865, the Confederacy had collapsed, and its armed forces had ceased to exist. The systematic destruction of the South’s transportation, manufacturing, and industrial facilities during the closing months of the war had ensured the futility of further armed resistance. It also made a swift economic recovery next to impossible, leaving ex-Confederates destitute and bitter over their harsh fate. The bloodiest war in U.S. history—final death toll estimates range from 600,000 to over 800,000 fighting men—had settled the critical issues of secession and slavery but left much else unresolved, above all the former slaves’ civil, political, and economic status in the postwar South.
76 pages
