As Wilson’s raiders moved through Alabama in early April, Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was struggling to survive in the East. On April 2, 1865, General Lee had to abandon Richmond, Virginia, forcing the Confederate government to evacuate. Meanwhile, the Confederates moved westward through Virginia, intermittently tangling with Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s pursuing Army of the Potomac. One soldier serving in the Ninth Alabama, William Cowan McClellan of Athens, Alabama, wrote to his brother on March 24, 1865, that “Grant has had to contend with the greatest gen. the world ever produced.” Despite confidence in Lee, however, McClellan confided to his brother that he was “low down” and could “see but little hope for these confederate states in these times.” McClellan was captured by northern soldiers before the war ended a few weeks later, when Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.
On December 23, 1864, Malinda Taylor penned a letter to her husband, Pvt. Grant Taylor, who was serving in the Confederate Army in southern Alabama. “[A]nother Cristmas [sic] is nearly here and you are still absent,” wrote Malinda. “I was so in hopes you would spende [sic] this Cristmas [sic] at home but it seemes [sic] that I will have to spend it again without you. I pray before another Cristmas [sic] shall role around that you may bee [sic] permitted to get home safe and sound.” As Grant and Malinda Taylor longed to be reunited, conditions continued to deteriorate throughout the Confederacy and in Alabama. Sherman’s March to the Sea was successful, and in the early months of 1865, he moved his army northward to meet Grant’s Army of the Potomac in Virginia. Meanwhile, Grant decided to send a final raid through the Deep South in order to destroy the arsenal in Selma, Alabama. By the end of March 1865, Union cavalrymen under the leadership of Gen. James H. Wilson had crossed the Tennessee River and were heading south through Alabama.
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Becoming Alabama:
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