Lincoln’s Leap Day Nomination of Grant

160 years ago on leap day, President Abraham Lincoln nominated Ulysses S. Grant to be Lieutenant General of the Army. Three years into the U.S. Civil War, with no end in sight, President Abraham Lincoln needed to find a commander who could lead the U.S. to victory. Abraham Lincoln, ca. 1861-1865. (National Archives Identifier 530592) … Continue reading Lincoln’s Leap Day Nomination of Grant

Ending the Bloodshed: The Last Surrenders of the Civil War

This post was originally published as an article by Trevor Plante in the Spring 2015 issue of Prologue magazine. Trevor K. Plante is chief of the Reference Services Branch at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. He is a supervisory archivist who specializes in 19th- and early 20th-century military records and is an active lecturer and a frequent … Continue reading Ending the Bloodshed: The Last Surrenders of the Civil War