Divided Nation Rising

The Civil War's Long Shadow

The last moments of April 9, 1865, hang in the American

imagination like a painting whose colors have never truly faded. At

Appomattox Court House, Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S.

Grant marked the official end of the Civil War. In schools and

textbooks, this moment is often portrayed as closure—a handshake

between two generals, the violence over, the country reunited at

last. But beneath that image lies a deeper, more unsettling story.

The end of the war did not bring peace or easy resolution. Instead,

it peeled back layers of pain, exposing old wounds while carving

new ones. For millions of Americans—freedpeople unsure of their

rights or futures, defeated Confederates struggling with shattered

identities, victorious Unionists uncertain how to rebuild—the

moment was less epilogue than prologue, a confusing dawn for a

nation struggling to define itself.