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.
In the summer of 1864, the fighting once again came to Alabama. Since the early years of the war, Alabamians had been preoccupied with protecting the port of Mobile. After New Orleans fell, the Alabama Legislature determined that “the City of Mobile shall never be surrendered; that it should be defended from street to street, from house to house, and inch by inch, until if taken, the victors’ spoils shall be alone a heap of ashes.” Attempting to protect the city and its port against Union attack, the Confederate military had braced the existing Forts—Morgan and Gaines—while building an additional stronghold, Fort Powell.
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Becoming Alabama:
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