Conclusion of the American Civil War

Stand Watie

The Native American tribes of the Indian Territory realized that the Confederacy could no longer fulfill its commitments to them. Therefore, the Camp Napoleon Council was called to draft an agreement to present a united front as they negotiated a return of their loyalty to the United States. Native American tribes further west, many of them also at war with the United States troops, were also invited to take part, and several of them did.[22]

At the end of the meeting, on May 26, 1865, the council appointed commissioners (no more than five for each tribe) to attend a conference with the U.S. government at Washington D.C., at which the results of the Camp Napoleon Council would be presented and discussed. However, the U.S. government refused to treat with such a large group representing so many tribes. Furthermore, the government regarded the Camp Napoleon meeting as unofficial and unauthorized. President Johnson later called for a meeting at Fort Smith (called the Fort Smith Council), which was held in September, 1865.[23]

Kirby Smith

Confederate leaders asked General Kirby Smith to send reinforcements from his Army of the Trans-Mississippi east of the Mississippi River, in the spring of 1864 following the Battle of Mansfield and the Battle of Pleasant Hill. This was not practicable due to the Union naval control of the Mississippi River and the unwillingness of western troops to be transferred east of the river. Smith instead dispatched Major General Sterling Price and his cavalry on an invasion of Missouri that was ultimately not successful. Thereafter the war west of the Mississippi River was principally one of small raids.

By May 26, 1865, a representative of Smith's negotiated and signed surrender documents with a representative of Major General Edward Canby in Shreveport, Louisiana, then took custody of Smith's force of 43,000 soldiers when they surrendered, by then the only significant Confederate forces left west of the Mississippi River. With this ended all organized Southern military resistance to the Union forces. Smith signed the surrender papers on June 2 on board the U.S.S. Fort Jackson just outside Galveston Harbor.[24]

In view of the surrender of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department to Maj. Gen. Canby on May 26, 1865, Brig. Gen. Cyrus Bussey issued General Orders No. 24 from Headquarters Third Div., 7th Army Corps, Fort Smith, Ark., June 2, 1865, stating that "All such persons who remain in arms engaged in acts of hostility to the United States after a reasonable time to be informed of their surrender, will be regarded as guerrillas and outlaws, and when arrested will be shot."[25]

Ending slavery had become a key war goal of the Union. This had been practically accomplished with the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves in former Confederate territory as the Union took it.[26] While slaves in much of the eastern Confederacy had already been freed by Union incursion, many of the further reaches of the Confederacy had not been touched by war, including much of Texas. On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger gave General Order No. 3, declaring all slaves in Texas to be free. While practically the order took some time to spread and enforce, its date of enactment was momentous, marking the legal end of slavery in the Confederacy.[27] This is now celebrated as the national holiday Juneteenth. The full end of slavery in the United States did not come until December 6, with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.[28] In Native American territories that had sided with the Confederacy, slavery did not end until 1866.[29]

On June 19, 1865, Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger issued General Orders No. 4, Headquarters District of Texas, Galveston, Tex., stating that "All lawless persons committing acts of violence, such as banditti, guerrillas, jayhawkers, horse-thieves, &c. are hereby declared outlaws and enemies of the human race, and will be dealt with accordingly."[30] President Andrew Johnson issued three proclamations in 1865 and 1866 that formally declared the end of the rebellion in different parts of the former Confederacy.[2] The first, issued on June 23, 1865, declared the rebellion fully suppressed only within the state of Tennessee, Johnson's home state where he had been military governor.

And I hereby also proclaim and declare that the insurrection, so far as it relates to, and within the State of Tennessee, and the inhabitants of the said State of Tennessee as reorganized and constituted under their recently adopted constitution and reorganization, and accepted by them, is suppressed, and therefore, also, that all the disabilities and disqualifications attaching to said State and the inhabitants thereof consequent upon any proclamations issued by virtue of the fifth section of the act entitled "An act further to provide for the collection of duties on imports, and for other purposes," approved the thirteenth day of July, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, are removed.[31]

CSS Shenandoah

James Waddell

World route of CSS Shenandoah

Editorial cartoon satirizing James Waddell still engaging in combat after the Civil War was regarded over.

The CSS Shenandoah was commissioned as a commerce raider by the Confederacy to interfere with Union shipping and hinder their efforts in the American Civil War. A Scottish-built merchant ship originally called the Sea King, it was secretly purchased by Confederate agents in September 1864. Captain James Waddell renamed the ship Shenandoah after she was converted to a warship off the coast of Spain on October 19, shortly after leaving England. William Conway Whittle, Waddell's right-hand man, was the ship's executive officer.[32]

The Shenandoah, sailing south then east across the Indian Ocean and into the South Pacific, was in Micronesia at the Island of Ponape (called Ascension Island by Whittle) at the time of the surrender of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia to the Union forces on April 9, 1865.[33] Waddell had already captured and disposed of thirteen Union merchantmen.

The Shenandoah destroyed one more prize in the Sea of Okhotsk, north of Japan, then continued to the Aleutians and into the Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean, crossing the Arctic Circle on June 19.[34] Continuing then south along the coast of Alaska the Shenandoah came upon a fleet of Union ships whaling on June 22.[34] She opened continuous fire, destroying a major portion of the Union whaling fleet.[34] Capt. Waddell took aim at a fleeing whaler, Sophia Thornton, and at his signal, the gunner jerked a wrist strap and fired the last two shots of the American Civil War.[35] Shenandoah had so far captured and burned eleven ships of the American whaling fleet while in Arctic waters.[34]

Waddell finally learned of Lee's surrender on June 27 when the captain of the prize Susan & Abigail produced a newspaper from San Francisco. The same paper contained Confederate President Jefferson Davis's proclamation that the "war would be carried on with re-newed vigor".[36] Shenandoah proceeded to capture a further ten whalers in the following seven hours. Waddell then steered Shenandoah south, intending to raid the port of San Francisco which he believed to be poorly defended. En route they encountered an English barque, Barracouta, on August 2 from which Waddell learned of the final collapse of the Confederacy including the surrenders of Johnston's, Kirby Smith's, and Magruder's armies and the capture of President Davis. The long log entry of the Shenandoah for August 2, 1865, begins "The darkest day of my life." Captain Waddell realized then in his grief that they had taken innocent unarmed Union whaling ships as prizes when the rest of the country had ended hostilities.[37]

Following the orders of the captain of the Barracouta, Waddell immediately converted the warship back to a merchant ship, storing her cannon below, discharging all arms, and repainting the hull.[37][38] At this point, Waddell decided to sail back to England and surrender the Shenandoah in Liverpool. Surrendering in an American port carried the certainty of facing a court with a Union point of view and the very real risk of a trial for piracy, for which he and the crew could be hanged. Sailing south around Cape Horn and staying well off shore to avoid shipping that might report Shenandoah's position, they saw no land for another 9,000 miles until they arrived back in England, having logged a total of over 58,000 miles around the world in a year's travel—the only Confederate ship to circumnavigate the globe.[39]

Thus the final Confederate surrender of the war did not occur until November 6, 1865, when Waddell's ship reached Rock Ferry and was surrendered to Capt. R. N. Paynter, commander of HMS Donegal of the British Royal Navy.[37][40][41] The Shenandoah was officially surrendered by letter to the British Prime Minister, the Earl Russell.[42][43][44][45] Ultimately, after an investigation by the British Admiralty court, Waddell and his crew were exonerated of doing anything that violated the laws of war and were unconditionally released. Shenandoah herself was sold to Sultan Majid bin Said of Zanzibar in 1866 and renamed El Majidi.[46] Several of the crew moved to Argentina to become farmers and eventually returned to the United States.

On April 6, 1866, Johnson issued a second proclamation that formally ended the rebellion in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia (as well as proclaiming it ended, rather than merely "suppressed," in Tennessee). Only Texas, where pockets of resistance remained, was excluded.[47]

Now, therefore, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, do hereby proclaim and declare that the insurrection which heretofore existed in the States of Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Florida is at an end and is henceforth to be so regarded.[47]

The formal end of the war came on August 20, 1866, when Johnson signed a Proclamation – Declaring that Peace, Order, Tranquillity, and Civil Authority Now Exists in and Throughout the Whole of the United States of America.[48][49] It noted that his April proclamation had declared "that there no longer existed any armed resistance of misguided citizens or others to the authority of the United States in any or in all the States before mentioned, excepting only the State of Texas."[49]

Whereas subsequently to the said 2d day of April, 1866, the insurrection in the State of Texas has been completely and everywhere suppressed and ended and the authority of the United States has been successfully and completely established in the said State of Texas and now remains therein unresisted and undisputed...

Whereas all the reasons and conclusions set forth in regard to the several States therein specially named now apply equally and in all respects to the State of Texas, as well as to the other States which had been involved in insurrection...

Now, therefore, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, do hereby proclaim and declare that the insurrection which heretofore existed in the State of Texas is at an end and is to be henceforth so regarded in that State as in the other States before named in which the said insurrection was proclaimed to be at an end by the aforesaid proclamation of the 2d day of April, 1866.

And I do further proclaim that the said insurrection is at an end and that peace, order, tranquillity, and civil authority now exist in and throughout the whole of the United States of America.[49]

This final date, August 20, 1866, was adopted as the legal end of the Civil War by United States courts, departments, and agencies, as well as Congress.[2] An 1867 act of Congress extended soldiers' wartime rates of pay "for three years from and after the close of the rebellion, as announced by the President of the United States by proclamation, bearing date the twentieth day of August, eighteen hundred and sixty-six."[50] The Supreme Court also cited August 20, 1866 as the war's official end in Anderson v. United States.[51]