7.3Union victory and Lincoln's death

By 1864, Union armies under Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman waged relentless campaigns that broke Southern resistance. Sherman's march through Georgia devastated the Confederacy's capacity to fight. In April 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, effectively ending the war.

Days later, Lincoln was assassinated by a Confederate sympathizer—the first American president to be murdered. He had already sketched a generous vision of reunion. His death removed the leader best positioned to guide reconstruction and left the enormous task of rebuilding, and defining freedom for four million former slaves, to less capable hands.