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CSS Shenandoah |
After the major Confederate armies under Lee and Johnston surrendered in April, 1865, the other Southern forces still remaining in arms gradually followed suit. President Jefferson Davis was captured on May 10, and held prisoner for two years before being released without trial. The Battle of Palmito Ranch on May 13 was likely the last land battle. In it a Union regiment in Texas was defeated by Confederates who had not yet surrendered. The very last Confederate surrender was of the CSS Shenandoah. She was a commerce raider cruising in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and it took her a long time to hear of the Confederacy's demise. She was on her way to try a raid on San Francisco when she captured a vessel that had certain news of the country's fall. Her captain sailed her around the world to Liverpool, England, where he surrendered the Shenandoah to a Royal Navy captain on November 6, 1865.
Although the aftermath of the Civil War played
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