Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter.
On the morning of April 9, 1865, in Appomattox Court House, VA, General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia fought its last battle before surrendering to General Ulysses S. Grant’s Union Army. The signing of the surrender documents took place in the home of Wilmer McLean later that afternoon.
As news spread of Lee’s surrender, other Confederate States Army commanders also began laying down their arms. On May 9, 1965, one month after Appomattox, the bloodiest war in American history was officially declared over.
This was The New York Times‘s Page One, the day after Lee’s surrender:
Has America ever needed a media defender more than now? Help us by joining CJR today.
