154 Years Ago, May 12th & 13th, 1865...the Last Battle of the American Civil War

Map and Drawing of The Battle of Palmitto Ranch

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Sometimes earlier ages seem quaint. They seem simpler times...but sometimes simpler isn't necessarily better.

While Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox on April 9th, 1865 officially ended the American Civil War, news didn't travel as fast back then.

There were at least 6 battles that occurred after Lee's surrender, five of them after President Lincoln was assassinated, on April 15th, 1865. (https://www.history.com/…/6-civil-war-battles-after-appomat…) Some due to news travelling slow and some due to combatants not wanting to give up the flight.

The last actual battle of the American Civil War was fought in Texas, at Palmito Ranch...and, ironically enough, it was a Confederate victory.

While the rebels had already lost the Civil War, ironically enough, they won what some consider the war’s final land battle. On May 12th & 13th, Southern forces in the Trans-Mississippi region had yet to surrender. When Union forces left Brazos Island on the southern tip of Texas and marched inland toward Brownsville along the banks of the Rio Grande, they encountered rebel outposts.

With both sides fully aware of the surrender at Appomattox, a force of 350 Confederates under Colonel John Ford defeated 800 Union troops commanded by Colonel Theodore H. Barrett, who narrowly avoided being trapped in a bend of the Rio Grande.

Among the handful of dead was Union Private John J. Williams of the 34th Indiana Infantry Regiment, who is thought to have been the last of the more than 600,000 soldiers killed in the Civil War.

When Confederate General Kirby Smith agreed to surrender his Army of the Trans-Mississippi two weeks after the Battle of Palmito Ranch (also referred to as the Battle of Palmetto Ranch) on May 26th, the organized military rebellion against the Union ended.

However, it was Captain James Waddell of the CSS Shenandoah who fired the last shots of the American Civil War on June 28th, 1865, when the Confederate vessel seized 10 Union whalers that had been harvesting the Bering Sea off the Alaskan coast, nearly 12 weeks after the surrender at Appomattox.

After being told of Lee's surrender, he sailed to Liverpool, England to surrender his vessel on November 6th, 1865.

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