From VOA Learning English, this is The Making of a Nation. I’m Kelly Jean Kelly.
Abraham Lincoln did not live to see the final surrender of the armies of the Confederacy. A Confederate sympathizer shot the president at Ford's Theatre in Washington on April 14, 1865.
By that time, however, the American Civil War was over.
General Robert E. Lee surrendered in early April, bringing an end to four years of fighting. Several other Confederate armies were still in the field. But they were too small and too weak to continue the fight.
One by one, the remaining armies surrendered. The soldiers began returning home.
Late in May, 150,000 Union soldiers, representing every one of the Union armies, came to Washington. They came to take part in a victory march through the city.