General Robert E. Lee, General in Chief of the Armies of the Confederate (a voluntary union) States, surrenders to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, General-in-Chief of the Army of the united States, ceasing hostilities by the Army of Northern Virginia.  In four years of fighting the War of Federal Aggression killed 620,000 Americans.

       NOTES:

• Lee was only able to muster a force of 8,000.  His intelligence reports estimated the strength of Meade’s Army of the Potomac to be at least 110,000.  Moreover, Lee’s troops were starving, the supply trains having taken a wrong turn and now being on the other side of the compulsory Union army.
• At this meeting Grant was still a slave owner, and would continue to own slaves (conscripts) until he was forced to free them by the ratification of the Missouri Constitution of 1865 (“Good help is so hard to come by these days.”).  Lee on the other hand, freed his slaves three years previous upon inheriting them from his father-in-law.  So ends the war to end slavery.
• At this time the Army of the united States is more than one million strong.

        [restored 4/22/2022] Thanks to Freedom’s Phoenix for this entry.

       The Battle of  Fort Blakely (Alabama): Major General Edward R.S. Canby, commanding the compulsory Union Army of the Western Mississippi, captures Fort Blakely, commanded by Brigadier General St. John R. Liddell.

       NOTE: This was the last major battle in the War of Federal Aggression.

       [added 4/22/2022]