On the same day on which Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses Grant at Appomattox, the besieged Confederates at Mobile, Alabama realized that they did not have adequate numbers to continue to resist their Union attackers and would have to evacuate that major, southern port city. The Confederates removed whatever supplies they could, burned on hand cotton stocks, and abandoned Mobile on Tuesday, April 11, 1865. On the following day the final, major city of the Confederacy fell, as Union troops under E.R.S. Canby triumphantly entered Mobile. The withdrawing Confederates, approximately 5000 in number under the command of D. H. Maury, retreated unopposed to Meridian, Mississippi, in hopes of joining Joseph Johnston’s Confederates in North Carolina so as to continue the war effort.
00000174-b11b-ddc3-a1fc-bfdbb1a20000The Schreiner University Department of History is honoring the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War with a series of short vignettes focusing on events from 1861 through 1865. The Civil War was the most destructive conflict in American history, but it was also one of our most defining moments as a people and as a nation. Let us know what you think about "This Week in the Civil War." E-mail your comments to Dr. John Huddleston at jhuddles@schreiner.edu.Airs: Weekdays at 5:19 a.m., 8:19 a.m., 4:19 p.m. on KTXI and 4:49 a.m., 9:29 p.m. on KSTX.