176 



THi: STANDARD DICTIONARY OF FACTS 



to SmithfieKI. covering Raleigh. Sherman then 

 occupied ". whence he 1 on 



April loth. John.ston retreated through 

 letgh, and on April L'lith Mirn-nili-n-d hi> entire 

 army, then reduced to about 31.(KH> mm. In 



"im-aniiiiH .i-y force uiuler General 



\\ il-on had swept through Alabama from the 

 north, and passed into Georgia, occupying Selma 

 on April 2d, Montgomery on the li'th. aiul 



.tnbus, Ga., on the If.tli. Mobile was taken 

 on April liith by General Canby, aided by a 

 fleet under Admiral Thatcher. On May -1th. 

 General Taylor surrendered the Confederate 

 forces in Alabama to General Canby. The last 

 fight of the war occurred May i:th. on the Rio 

 Grande in Texas, between Colonel Barrett (Fed- 

 eral) and General Slaughter (Confederate), the 

 latter being victorious. The trans-Mi.-sissippi 

 army of the Confederates, the last in the field, 

 was surrendered by Kirby Smith on May 26th. 

 During the war Confederate cruisers, mostly 

 built and fitted out in British ports, and manned 



i'.ritish sailors, scoured the ocean. Evading 

 vessels of war, they destroyed hundreds of mer- 

 chantmen, doing irreparable injury to the com- 

 merce of the Lnion. The chief of these were 

 the "Alabama," "Chickamnuga," "Florida," 

 "Georgia," "Olustee," "Shenandoah," "Sum- 

 ter," and "Tallahassee." The "Alabama," the 

 most famous, commanded by Raphael Semmes, 

 was sunk off Cherbourg, France, June 19, 1864, | 

 by the United States steamer "Kearsarge," 



inanded by Captain Winslow. After the 

 fall of Richmond, President Davis of the Con- 

 federacy fled south, and was captured at Irwin- 

 \ille, Ga., by General Wilson's forces, May 10, 

 1865. He and some other prominent leaders 

 were imprisoned for a time, but no man was 

 punished for participation in the rebellion. The 



onal Republican Convention assembled at 

 Baltimore on June 7, 1864, and nominated 

 President Lincoln for reelection, and for vice- 

 president Andrew Johnson of Tennessee. The 

 platform pledged a vigorous prosecution of the 

 war for the suppression of the rebellion, and 

 favored an amendment to the Constitution 

 abolishing slavery. The National Democratic ! 

 Convention assembled at Chicago on August 

 29th, and nominated General George B. McClel- 

 lan for president, and for vice-president George 

 1 1 . I 'end le ton of Ohio. The election took place 

 ul>er 8th. the eleven seceded States not 

 participating. McClellan and Pendleton re- 

 ceived the electoral votes of New Jersey, Dela- 

 ware, and Kentucky, 21; Lincoln and Johnson 

 received those of all the other States, 212, and I 

 were elected. On March 4, 1865, Lincoln's sec- 

 ond inauguration took place. On April 14th he 

 was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, and j 

 the Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, dangerously 

 wounded by another conspirator; and on the 

 following day Vice-President Johnson entered 

 upon the duties of the presidency. The ques- 

 tion of emancipation early attracted the atten- 

 tion of the administration and Congress. On 

 April 16, 1862, an act was passed abolishing 

 -la very in the District of Columbia, and on June 

 9th another act declared that slavery should not j 

 thereafter exist in the Territories. On January > 

 1, 1863, Mr. Lincoln issued a proclamation de- 



claring free all persons held as slaves within the 

 or portions of States then in rebellion. 

 The 13th amendment to the Federal Consti- 

 tution, declaring that slavery shall not exist 

 within the Tinted States or any place subject 

 to their control, was declared adopted by the 

 proclamation of the Secretary of State on Decem- 

 ber 18, 1865. The first step toward the recon- 

 struction of loyal governments in the seceded 

 was the proclamation of President Lin- 

 coln of December 8, 1863. Under this scheme 

 governments were organized in Louisiana and 

 Arkansas in the early part of 1864, and in Ten- 

 nessee early in 1865, but senators and repre- 

 sentatives from those States were not admitted 

 to Congress. After the close of the war Presi- 

 dent Johnson appointed provisional governors 

 for several of the seceded States. But Congress 

 did not approve this scheme of reconstruction, 

 and senators and representatives from those 

 States were not admitted. In June, 1866, a 

 joint resolution adopted by Congress proposed 

 the 14th amendment to the Constitution, 

 extending the rights of citizenship to all classes 

 of native and naturalized persons, guaranteeing 

 the validity of the national debt, forbidding the 

 payment of any part of the Confederate debt 

 or of claims for the loss of slaves, etc. In July 

 senators and representatives were admitted from 

 Tennessee, that State having ratified the 14th 

 amendment. On January 8, 1867, an act was 

 passed over President Johnson's veto, confer- 

 ring the right of suffrage on colored citizens of 

 the District of Columbia, and on the 24th a 

 similar act became a law for the Territories. 

 The congressional plan of reconstruction was 

 developed in the act of March 2d and the sup- 

 plementary acts of March 23d and July 19tn, 

 each of which was passed over the President's 

 veto. These acts declared that "no legal State 

 Governments or adequate protection for life or 

 property now exist in the rebel States of Vir- 

 ginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, 

 Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, 

 and Arkansas," and divided them into five mili- 

 tary districts. The district commanders were 

 required to make a registration of voters, com- 

 prising male citizens of the United States 21 

 years old and upward, without regard to race, 

 color, or previous condition, who had resided 

 in the respective States one year, and were not 

 excluded from holding office by the 14th amend- 

 ment. Delegates were to be elected in the 

 several States by the registered voters to con- 

 ventions for framing new constitutions. Only 

 when constitutions had been adopted conferring 

 the right of suffrage on colored persons, and such 

 constitutions had been approved by Congress, 

 and when the 14th amendment had been 

 ratified by the legislatures of the respective 

 States, were senators and representatives to be 

 admitted. The conditions of these acts were 

 complied with in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, 

 Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and South 

 Carolina in 1868, and in Mississippi, Texas, and 

 Virginia in 1870. But the subsequent action 

 of the legislature of Georgia in excluding colored 

 members led to further measures on the part 

 of Congress, and delayed the final restoration 

 of that State until 1870. The adoption of the 



