What was the last Confederate victory in the Civil War?
983739#0
The Battle of Natural Bridge was fought during the American Civil War in what is now Woodville, Florida near Tallahassee on March 6, 1865. A small band of Confederate troops and volunteers, mostly composed of teenagers from the nearby Florida Military and Collegiate Institute that would later become Florida State University, and the elderly, protected by breastworks, prevented a detachment of United States Colored Troops from crossing the Natural Bridge on the St. Marks River. The Natural Bridge is a one-quarter mile long stretch along which the St. Marks River runs underground, after dropping into a sinkhole. This action prevented the Union Army from capturing the Florida capital and made Tallahassee the only Confederate capital east of the Mississippi River not to be captured by Union forces during the war. The battle has been described as the last Confederate victory in the American Civil War, and it was the second largest American Civil War battle in Florida.
Battle of Natural Bridge
128338#9
Plymouth has the historical distinction of being the site of the second-largest battle in North Carolina and its last Confederate victory, the Battle of Plymouth (1864), during the American Civil War. The Confederate ironclad warship CSS "Albemarle" — and its eventual sinking on October 27, 1864 while moored at a dock in Plymouth — are the centerpieces of this history.
Plymouth, North Carolina
249708#0
The Battle of Palmito Ranch is considered by some criteria as the final battle of the American Civil War. It was fought May 12 and 13, 1865, on the banks of the Rio Grande east of Brownsville, Texas and a few miles from the seaport of Los Brazos de Santiago. Since the Confederacy had ceased to exist, it is also argued that this battle should be classified as a postwar action.
Battle of Palmito Ranch
18121698#12
On February 13, 1864, a force of about 350 Union troops supported by two howitzers attacked a Confederate outpost in the Indian Territory. The outpost was guarded by about 90 poorly armed Confederate soldiers. The outpost was located where the Dragoon Road crossed the Middle Boggy River. The Confederates resisted, holding off the Union troops for about half an hour, then fled on foot toward Fort Washita. The Union Army claimed victory because 49 Confederates were killed, while the Union forces suffered no deaths. The encounter had no strategic impact on the outcome of the Civil War. This was the last significant skirmish of the war in Indian Territory. It was a defeat for the Confederates, but the mistreatment of civilians and killings of wounded soldiers by the Union troops strengthened the resolve of Confederates and their sympathizers to continue the fight.
Indian Territory in the American Civil War
6696528#19
Georgia was relatively free from warfare until late 1863. A total of nearly 550 battles and skirmishes occurred within the state, with the majority occurring in the last two years of the conflict. The first major battle in Georgia was a Confederate victory at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863, which was the last major Confederate victory in the west. In 1864 Union general William T. Sherman's armies invaded Georgia as part of the Atlanta Campaign. Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston fought a series of battles, the largest being the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, trying to delay Union armies for as long as possible as he retreated toward Atlanta. Johnston's replacement, Gen. John Bell Hood, attempted several unsuccessful counterattacks at the Battle of Peachtree Creek and the Battle of Atlanta, but Sherman captured Atlanta on September 2, 1864.
Georgia in the American Civil War
21650#35
Confederate troops from all parts of North Carolina served in virtually all the major battles of the Army of Northern Virginia, the Confederacy's most famous army. The largest battle fought in North Carolina was at Bentonville, which was a futile attempt by Confederate General Joseph Johnston to slow Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's advance through the Carolinas in the spring of 1865. In April 1865, after losing the Battle of Morrisville, Johnston surrendered to Sherman at Bennett Place, in what is today Durham. North Carolina's port city of Wilmington was the last Confederate port to fall to the Union, in February 1865, after the Union won the nearby Second Battle of Fort Fisher, its major defense downriver.
The first Confederate soldier to be killed in the Civil War was Private Henry Wyatt from North Carolina, in the Battle of Big Bethel in June 1861. At the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, the 26th North Carolina Regiment participated in Pickett/Pettigrew's Charge and advanced the farthest into the Northern lines of any Confederate regiment. During the Battle of Chickamauga, the 58th North Carolina Regiment advanced farther than any other regiment on Snodgrass Hill to push back the remaining Union forces from the battlefield. At Appomattox Court House in Virginia in April 1865, the 75th North Carolina Regiment, a cavalry unit, fired the last shots of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the Civil War. For many years, North Carolinians proudly boasted that they had been "First at Bethel, Farthest at Gettysburg and Chickamauga, and Last at Appomattox."
North Carolina
21546927#36
Cherokee Brigadier General Stand Watie commanded the Confederate Indians when he surrendered on June 23. This was the last significant Confederate active force.
Watie formed the Cherokee Mounted Rifles. He was a guerrilla fighter commanding Cherokee, Seminole, Creek, and Osage Indian soldiers. They earned a notorious reputation for their bold and brave fighting. Yearly, Federal troops all over the western United States hunted for Watie, but they never captured him. He surrendered on June 23 at Fort Towson, in the Choctaw Nations area at the village of Doaksville (now a ghost town) of the Indian Territory, being the last Confederate general to surrender in the American Civil War.
Conclusion of the American Civil War
49020196#10
The Confederacy was also faced with the issue of slavery, very much contested despite its victory in what came to be known as "The War of the Southern Revolution." With the rest of the world abolishing slavery, Confederates started feeling that they were out of step. Virginia abolished slavery in its territory, followed by Kentucky and North Carolina, and later Maryland and Tennessee. A new political force named the Jeffersonian Party called for abolition of slavery and gained the support of such prominent persons as Stephen Dodson Ramseur, Robert E. Rodes, John Pegram and, later, Leonidas Polk. Finally, Confederate slavery was fully abolished in 1885, the Liberation Bill being adopted with little opposition under the presidency of James Longstreet. Southerners having resolved this by themselves, rather than having the decision forced upon them by a victorious hostile army, helped avoid any lingering bitterness, and no organization resembling the Ku Klux Klan arose.
If the South Had Won the Civil War
1185044#15
CSS "Shenandoah" had struck her colors twice. This marked the last surrender of the American Civil War and the last official lowering of the Confederate flag. The very last act of the Civil War was Captain Waddell walking up the steps of Liverpool Town Hall with a letter to present to the mayor surrendering his vessel to the British government. In so doing, the "Shenandoah" became the only Confederate warship to circumnavigate the globe.
CSS Shenandoah
2229267#15
Union casualties were seven men killed and twenty-nine wounded. The Confederates' losses were nineteen killed, twenty-eight wounded, and two hundred eighteen captured. The death of Brigadier General Tyler is noted as the last Confederate general to die in a battle. The Confederates who died were buried in what is now known as the Fort Tyler Cemetery in town on the east side of the river. It is believed but not confirmed that the Union dead were buried there as well. In addition, at least 50 other unknown Civil War soldiers are interred there.
Battle of West Point
4469560#10
In a separate battle on Easter Sunday, April 16, Wilson was victorious in the Battle of Columbus, Georgia, in which Upton's division clashed with Confederate forces at Columbus, capturing the city and its naval works and burning, then scuttling the incomplete ironclad ram, CSS "Jackson". This engagement is widely regarded as the "Last Battle of the Civil War." On April 20, Wilson's men captured Macon, Georgia, without resistance, and Wilson's Raid came to an end. This was only six days before General Joseph E. Johnston's surrender of all Confederate troops in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida to William Tecumseh Sherman, in North Carolina.
Wilson's Raid