US civil war Archives | The Banality Report

On this day in 1865 General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate Army to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, ending the US Civil War.

From April 12, 1861 to April 9, 1865, the United States was embroiled in a devastating, and bloody civil war that claimed the lives of 620,000 American soldiers* representing approximately 2%* of the total US population in a country with a population of 31 million.* The next highest military deaths to population ratio happened in World War II where 0.30% of the population, or 405,399, died. The Civil War caused more than 500 deaths per day, the highest daily death toll for an American involved war.*

Across the Union, nearly every American knew someone impacted by war, or was directly impacted themselves, including civilians and slaves. Many people had family members fighting in one or both armies.* Many civilians lived in the physical path of the two great armies, and either were caught in the cross-fire, or their homes and property were involuntarily used by one side or the other to replace vital resources, or for basic amusements. Travel was often unsafe, mail service was disrupted, and everyday supplies for life ran devastatingly low, especially in the South. As with most war, innocent people were often brutalized, including raped, tortured, mutilated, and killed along the way.*

Most Americans would agree that ending the amoral and ancient practice of slavery was vital to the future of the American Republic, and should never have existed at all, but this result came at the price of four years of death and daily tragedy for countless people, many of them just like you living regular lives. For 154 years, America has not endured the destruction caused by war on its own home turf, nor between its own people. Many people across the world cannot say the same thing.* Our current relatively peaceful and prosperous lives came at a cost most of us have never truly comprehended, or have largely forgotten.

— This has been your very banal report —

General Lee (right) Surrenders at Appomattox Courthouse, VA to General Grant (left).

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