In November 1864 Abraham Lincoln was reelected president, promising to carry the war out to total victory, and the Confederacy's last hope of reaching a settlement with the North and of preserving its independence abruptly ended. In February 1865 the Confederate congress took a last desperate step by allowing slaves to be armed and enrolled in the military ranks. The act did not grant freedom for service, however, and only a few black troops were mustered into the Confederate army, too late to have any effect on the war's outcome.

In April 1865 the Union armies captured Petersburg, a rail center lying just south of Richmond. With only 25,000 troops under his command, Lee desperately maneuvered to the west to join up with a Confederate force in North Carolina. But the trap closed around the Army of Northern Virginia, and on April 9 Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia. On April...