On this date in 1865

[Bull Snipe]

The muskets are stacked one last time, The regimental standards are furled one last time. The Army of Northern Virginia passes into history.

[SharpRightTurn]

And the feral government grows ever larger and more hostile to its people.

[Tell It Right]

And the feral government grows ever larger and more hostile to its people.

Unfortunately the Dims already made the federal government overreach before the Republicans won the argument on abolition. The Republicans seemed content with keeping abolition at the state level until the Dims passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and sent federal marshals into free states punishing regular citizens for not turning over runaway slaves. Then the Dim majority SCOTUS in 1857 wrote their judicial activism in the Dredd Scott, declaring blacks were non-citizens all across the land. In other words, it's the Dims not the Republicans who were at fault for making slavery a federal issue instead of letting it stay a state issue.

Only after that did the Republicans organize a federal abolitionist message (in the election of 1860, though that was mainly Congress, since Lincoln usually said he was willing to let the states decide to keep from tearing the country apart).

[Verginius Rufus]

Today is also the anniversary of the first shots fired at Fort Sumter.

Some veterans of the Army of Northern Virginia were still alive in 1938 for the 75th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg.

This year is the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landing, other campaigns in Europe, the Warsaw uprising, and the liberation of Guam. Some of the veterans in 1938 were younger than the surviving veterans of WWII are now.

[moovova]

I’m looking forward to April 19th...and what Joe Biden will rename it to.

[Paal Gulli]

"The muskets are stacked one last time, The regimental standards are furled one last time. The Army of Northern Virginia passes into history."

But, popular myth notwithstanding, the surrender of the Army of NoVa did NOT mark the end of the war.

Stand Watie and his 1st Cherokee Mounted Rifles did not stand down until 23 June, 1865.

The State of Texas stood in rebellion until it constituted a new, "Union-friendly" government in August of '65, inaugurating a Unionist as Governor on the 9th. And on the 20th, POTUS Andrew Johnson remarked, "...[S]aid insurrection is at an end and that peace, order, tranquility, and civil authority now exist in and throughout the whole United States of America...."

And Confederate States Navy Lieutenant Commander James Waddell did not relinquish his command of the Confederate States Ship Shenandoah until 6 November of '65.

So where you stick a pin in it is arguable but by no means did the war end when Lee surrendered.

[Bull Snipe]

never claimed that it did.