By civilwartalk
Published: September 30, 2006
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President Lincoln lived to learn of Lee's surrender and to rejoice that the war was almost at an end. A few days later, on April 14, he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a crazed actor and defender of the Confederacy. The North, overwhelmed with grief, was not disposed to be generous to the conquered Confederacy. Meanwhile, news of Lee's surrender slowly made its way to Johnston and Sherman in North Carolina. Johnston made peace overtures to Sherman, and on April 17 the two commanders met in Durham Station, North Carolina, to discuss terms. Sherman thought he was carrying out Lincoln's wish to heal the wounds of war by offering more generous terms than Grant had offered Lee. However, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, embittered by Lincoln's murder, which he suspected had been inspired by the Confederate government, refused to approve the terms. On April 26 Johnston had to surrender his 37,000 men on the same conditions as those agreed on by Lee when he surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House. Only two sizable Confederate armies remained. One was in Louisiana, led by General Richard Taylor. The other, commanded by General Edmund Kirby Smith, was in Texas. Taylor surrendered on May 4, and Smith surrendered on May 26, both of them to General E. R. S. Canby. On May 10 Jefferson Davis was captured in Georgia.
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