The Battle of Columbus, Georgia (April 16, 1865), was the last conflict in the Union campaign through Alabama and Georgia, known as Wilson's Raid, in the final full month of the American Civil War.
Maj. Gen. James H. Wilson had been ordered to destroy the city of Columbus as a major Confederate manufacturing center. He exploited enemy confusion when troops from both sides crowded onto the same bridge in the dark, and the garrison withheld its cannon fire. Next morning, Wilson laid waste to the city and took many prisoners.
Several authorities claim Columbus should be classified as the last battle of the Civil War, while others point to a battle that occurred after the Confederacy was vanquished, the Battle of Palmito Ranch. The Battle of Columbus is also known as the Battle of Girard, Alabama (now Phenix City).
After the Union victory in the Battle of Nashville (December 15–16, 1864), Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas ordered Maj. Gen. James H. Wilson to march into the heart of the Deep South and destroy the major Confederate supply centers at Selma, Alabama, and Columbus, Georgia.
Wilson left Gravelly Springs, Alabama, on March 22, 1865, heading for Selma, a major manufacturing and supply center. The Battle of Selma was fought on April 2, 1865, against the leadership of Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, whose men were hopelessly outnumbered by the Union troops. The battle took place on the same day the Confederate capital of Richmond fell to the Army of the Potomac. Forrest managed to inflict heavy casualties on the attackers, but Wilson's raiders finally broke through the defenses and captured Selma by 7 p.m. that evening. Wilson's men destroyed all the military supplies and looted the city before moving on.
On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House. Confederate General Joe Johnston's army was still intact, as were the armies in Alabama and Mississippi and in the Trans-Mississippi theater. Also, because of the lack of communications, General Wilson was not aware of Lee's surrender. He continued his raids.
On April 12, 1865, Wilson's men marched into the former Confederate capital of Montgomery, Alabama, encountering token resistance from the Confederates.
Wilson's next target was the manufacturing city of Columbus, Georgia, the largest-surviving supply city in the South. Columbus was second only to Richmond in providing the industrial support for the war, and Richmond had been taken. Columbus was located on the Chattahoochee River, where there was a major naval construction facility. A new ironclad, the CSS Muscogee, was docked at Columbus waiting to be completed.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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