Within two months of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House on 9 April 1865, the Confederacy had collapsed, and its armed forces had ceased to exist. In the spring of 1865, the U.S. Army faced the unprecedented task of occupying eleven conquered Southern states and administering "Reconstruction"-the process by which the former rebellious states would be restored to the Union. But a rapid demobilization of the Army...
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