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Lincoln's Peace: The Struggle to End the American Civil War
One historian’s journey to find the end of the Civil War—and, along the way, to expand our understanding of the nature of war itself and how societies struggle to draw the line between war and peace
We set out on the James River, March 25, 1865, aboard the paddle steamboat the River Queen. President Lincoln is on his way to General Grant’s headquarters at City Point, Virginia, and he’s decided he won’t return to Washington until he’s witnessed, or perhaps even orchestrated, the end of the Civil War. Now, it turns out, more than a century and a half later, historians are still searching for that end.
Was it April 9th, at Appomattox, as conventional wisdom holds, where Lee surrendered to Grant in Wilmer McLean’s parlor? Or was it ten weeks afterward, in Galveston, where a federal commander proclaimed “Juneteenth” the end of slavery? Or perhaps in August of 1866, when President Andrew Johnson simply declared “the insurrection is at an end”? That the answer was elusive was baffling even to a historian of the stature of Michael Vorenberg, whose work served as the principal source of Spielberg’s Lincoln. He was inspired to write this groundbreaking book, finding its title in the peace Lincoln hoped for but could not make before his assassination. A peace that required not one but many endings, as Vorenberg discovers in these pages, the most important of which came well over a year after Lincoln’s untimely death.
To say how a war ends is to suggest how it should be remembered, and Vorenberg’s search is not just for the Civil War’s endpoint but for its true nature and legacy, so essential to American identity. It’s also a quest, in our age of “forever wars,” to understand whether the U.S.’s interminable conflicts of the current era have a precedent in the Civil War—and whether, in a sense, wars ever end at all, or merely wax and wane.
We set out on the James River, March 25, 1865, aboard the paddle steamboat the River Queen. President Lincoln is on his way to General Grant’s headquarters at City Point, Virginia, and he’s decided he won’t return to Washington until he’s witnessed, or perhaps even orchestrated, the end of the Civil War. Now, it turns out, more than a century and a half later, historians are still searching for that end.
Was it April 9th, at Appomattox, as conventional wisdom holds, where Lee surrendered to Grant in Wilmer McLean’s parlor? Or was it ten weeks afterward, in Galveston, where a federal commander proclaimed “Juneteenth” the end of slavery? Or perhaps in August of 1866, when President Andrew Johnson simply declared “the insurrection is at an end”? That the answer was elusive was baffling even to a historian of the stature of Michael Vorenberg, whose work served as the principal source of Spielberg’s Lincoln. He was inspired to write this groundbreaking book, finding its title in the peace Lincoln hoped for but could not make before his assassination. A peace that required not one but many endings, as Vorenberg discovers in these pages, the most important of which came well over a year after Lincoln’s untimely death.
To say how a war ends is to suggest how it should be remembered, and Vorenberg’s search is not just for the Civil War’s endpoint but for its true nature and legacy, so essential to American identity. It’s also a quest, in our age of “forever wars,” to understand whether the U.S.’s interminable conflicts of the current era have a precedent in the Civil War—and whether, in a sense, wars ever end at all, or merely wax and wane.
480 pages, Hardcover
Published March 18, 2025
81 people are currently reading
3503 people want to read
About the author
Michael Vorenberg
14 books22 followersMichael Vorenberg is a professor of history at Brown University. His research takes place at the intersection of three fields in American history: Civil War and Reconstruction; Legal and Constitutional History; and Slavery, Emancipation, and Race.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
March 14, 2025
When did the Civil War end? No really, when? Come on, pick an event, a day, a time. When was the war officially over and when did the peace officially begin? There has to have been an end, right? So when was it? Huh? When? Got a date in mind? Good.
You’re wrong!
There's a lot about this book that I liked. But just one thing bugged me throughout, as somewhat flippantly illustrated above.
I'll begin on the plus side, in saying that this is a very thoughtful, informative book that’s sure to get excellent reviews, and in many ways, rightly so. The narrative consists of a thorough history of what you might consider the postwar, pre-Reconstruction era - a complicated period of time when the fighting was all but over, but the process of keeping the peace was just beginning.
Framed in that way, I think this could have been a far better book: Winning the war was hard. Winning the peace was harder. There, perfect, done. Instead, the book is framed around the question of “when did the war really end? Was it here? Or here? Or here? Or here?” In that sense, I think the book gets a little too hung up on its thesis, which states that one can’t really pinpoint the exact end of the war, despite many people’s attempts, then and now, to do so.
The lengthy preface could almost serve as a standalone essay in its own right, since it asks and answers Vorenberg’s central question - concluding that there was no clear end to the Civil War, or any war really. If you think about it for more than a moment, that answer is pretty self-evident.
But as the narrative unfolds, it asks about every key event - Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Johnston’s surrender in North Carolina, Juneteenth, the ratification of the 13th Amendment, and so on - “was this when the war officially ended?” The answer, of course, is no. And the preface has already told us that, so do we need to keep considering the question?
It may seem like a very nitpicky thing to harp on. But the book’s framing, to me, distracted from its content, which is otherwise excellent. In many ways, this is the book that I thought Appomattox: Victory, Defeat, and Freedom at the End of the Civil War should have been when I read it a few weeks ago. That book, published a dozen years ago, considered the meaning of the Appomattox surrender and what kind of nation would emerge as a result. But that book does as Vorenberg does not, in declaring Appomattox to be the moment the war ended, and it skims over a lot that happened between the war and the peace.
In Vorenberg’s telling, Appomattox was more like the beginning of the end. Lincoln didn’t declare victory, Jefferson Davis refused to concede defeat, so the war went on, and Vorenberg meticulously describes every subsequent event that happened - everything mentioned above, along with the surrender of the last organized Confederate forces in Texas, the proposed pursuit of Confederate stragglers who crossed the border into Mexico, lingering guerrilla activity, the trials of the Lincoln assassination conspirators, the debates over what to do with imprisoned Confederate political leaders, and an excellent chapter describing the CSS Shenandoah, whose crew continued attacking U.S. ships in the Pacific during the summer of 1865, unaware the Confederacy had already fallen.
Throughout, though, Vorenberg continually, almost obsessively, ponders whether each event could be considered the war’s official “end,” and explains why it cannot, long after he’s already established that to be the case. He even ventures into the more theoretical, considering whether a state of war persisted as long as slavery, or racism, or the Lost Cause, or the Frontier Wars against Native Americans, still existed.
Ultimately, the debate over when and whether the war ended turns into a lawyerly one, when it comes to deciding things like whether to try Confederate captives in military or civilian courts, and when and how to officially begin the process of Reconstruction. By the time Andrew Johnson issued a proclamation in August 1866 officially declaring the war over, he’s described as having “little patience left for technical arguments about the state of war or non-war.”
That may be the only time I’ve agreed with Andrew Johnson about anything.
This book to me was like a work of art with an unsightly frame - if the frame complements the artwork, then it shouldn’t be noticed and shouldn’t distract. Instead, the frame here just seemed somehow misplaced, and was impossible to ignore when trying to focus on the otherwise excellent work itself. It’s still a worthy read and a well-written, well-researched history of an often-overlooked time. But the idea that the war did not come to a clean and clear end could have been summarized in a sentence. In the end, the book’s descriptions about what did happen, turn out to be far more interesting than its attempts to describe what didn’t.
Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Knopf for providing an advance copy of this book for review, ahead of its March 18th release.
You’re wrong!
There's a lot about this book that I liked. But just one thing bugged me throughout, as somewhat flippantly illustrated above.
I'll begin on the plus side, in saying that this is a very thoughtful, informative book that’s sure to get excellent reviews, and in many ways, rightly so. The narrative consists of a thorough history of what you might consider the postwar, pre-Reconstruction era - a complicated period of time when the fighting was all but over, but the process of keeping the peace was just beginning.
Framed in that way, I think this could have been a far better book: Winning the war was hard. Winning the peace was harder. There, perfect, done. Instead, the book is framed around the question of “when did the war really end? Was it here? Or here? Or here? Or here?” In that sense, I think the book gets a little too hung up on its thesis, which states that one can’t really pinpoint the exact end of the war, despite many people’s attempts, then and now, to do so.
The lengthy preface could almost serve as a standalone essay in its own right, since it asks and answers Vorenberg’s central question - concluding that there was no clear end to the Civil War, or any war really. If you think about it for more than a moment, that answer is pretty self-evident.
But as the narrative unfolds, it asks about every key event - Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Johnston’s surrender in North Carolina, Juneteenth, the ratification of the 13th Amendment, and so on - “was this when the war officially ended?” The answer, of course, is no. And the preface has already told us that, so do we need to keep considering the question?
It may seem like a very nitpicky thing to harp on. But the book’s framing, to me, distracted from its content, which is otherwise excellent. In many ways, this is the book that I thought Appomattox: Victory, Defeat, and Freedom at the End of the Civil War should have been when I read it a few weeks ago. That book, published a dozen years ago, considered the meaning of the Appomattox surrender and what kind of nation would emerge as a result. But that book does as Vorenberg does not, in declaring Appomattox to be the moment the war ended, and it skims over a lot that happened between the war and the peace.
In Vorenberg’s telling, Appomattox was more like the beginning of the end. Lincoln didn’t declare victory, Jefferson Davis refused to concede defeat, so the war went on, and Vorenberg meticulously describes every subsequent event that happened - everything mentioned above, along with the surrender of the last organized Confederate forces in Texas, the proposed pursuit of Confederate stragglers who crossed the border into Mexico, lingering guerrilla activity, the trials of the Lincoln assassination conspirators, the debates over what to do with imprisoned Confederate political leaders, and an excellent chapter describing the CSS Shenandoah, whose crew continued attacking U.S. ships in the Pacific during the summer of 1865, unaware the Confederacy had already fallen.
Throughout, though, Vorenberg continually, almost obsessively, ponders whether each event could be considered the war’s official “end,” and explains why it cannot, long after he’s already established that to be the case. He even ventures into the more theoretical, considering whether a state of war persisted as long as slavery, or racism, or the Lost Cause, or the Frontier Wars against Native Americans, still existed.
Ultimately, the debate over when and whether the war ended turns into a lawyerly one, when it comes to deciding things like whether to try Confederate captives in military or civilian courts, and when and how to officially begin the process of Reconstruction. By the time Andrew Johnson issued a proclamation in August 1866 officially declaring the war over, he’s described as having “little patience left for technical arguments about the state of war or non-war.”
That may be the only time I’ve agreed with Andrew Johnson about anything.
This book to me was like a work of art with an unsightly frame - if the frame complements the artwork, then it shouldn’t be noticed and shouldn’t distract. Instead, the frame here just seemed somehow misplaced, and was impossible to ignore when trying to focus on the otherwise excellent work itself. It’s still a worthy read and a well-written, well-researched history of an often-overlooked time. But the idea that the war did not come to a clean and clear end could have been summarized in a sentence. In the end, the book’s descriptions about what did happen, turn out to be far more interesting than its attempts to describe what didn’t.
Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Knopf for providing an advance copy of this book for review, ahead of its March 18th release.
August 1, 2025
When did the American Civil War end? We all learned the answer back in high school, didn’t we? April 9, 1865. Appomattox Court House in Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendering to US Army General Ulysses S. Grant. Even Google agrees (though it does qualify its answer by saying the war “effectively ended” on that date, adding that the “final surrender” took place in Texas on June 2). So: asked, answered, and done.
Except that as Michael Vorenberg convincingly argues in his book “Lincoln’s Peace,” identifying ‘when the Civil War ended’ is not simple at all. (I will leave it to be discussed elsewhere whether or not, as many have proposed, the Civil War never truly ended and we are fighting it still, albeit by other than military means.)
Consider some of the complicating factors: The Constitution says that only Congress has the authority to declare war. Should it be inferred from this that only Congress can declare a war ended? Can the President as Commander in Chief of US armed forces decide a war is over? Robert E. Lee knew he didn’t have the authority to end the war. He could only surrender his army. But there were many thousands of troops under the command of other Confederate generals, particularly further to the west and in Texas. Lee had no power over them at all. Most importantly, as President of the Confederacy, it was Jefferson Davis who had the sole power to say the war was over, and he sure as hell had no intention of doing so.
Lest anyone take this to be the kind of question only a historian would care about, Vorenberg opens the book with a US officer named Lewis Grant (no relation to Ulysses, though he did serve under the future president). Awarded the Congressional Medal on Honor, Lewis Grant turned down an offer of a command in the army and became a lawyer. In time he got a position as an attorney in the War Department. In 1890 — some 25 years after Appomattox— a case landed on his desk. An army veteran had been denied a pension on the grounds that he had not served in the Civil War. The vet (his name was John Barleyoung) contested the decision, arguing that the Civil War was in fact not yet over in April 1866 when he first enlisted. For Lewis Grant the claim seemed preposterous but he was a lawyer and he was dealing with a legal claim so he began to research the question — and ran into all manner of competing answers (among them, depending on which government office or document was consulted: May 1, 1865; June 2; July 22; April 2, 1866; even — according to the US Supreme Court — August 20, 1866; or maybe not). By picking one date or another, as Vorenberg put it, the War Department was “winging it”:
Barleyoung was still not going to get a pension. But that was almost beside the point. The more important thing was this: Barleyoung’s claim was not crazy. The Civil War had indeed lasted for at least a year beyond Appomattox. The evidence was everywhere, but the U.S. government, along with most Americans, had stuck with a fiction: the Civil War had ended in the spring of 1865. Grant set down his findings in a long report to his boss, Secretary of War [Redfield] Proctor. It began, ‘When did the War of the Rebellion begin, and when did it end?’ “
Vorenburg travels down a number of fascinating paths to flesh out the stories that complicate pinning down a date for the war’s end. We learn of Confederate officers and soldiers who went south in the hope of finding support from the Mexican government for a resumption of hostilities. Of President Andrew Johnson, who as time went on, moved further and further away from the vision Abraham Lincoln has for post-war Reconstruction. In May 11865, Johnson said that the rebellion had been “almost entirely overcome.” As late as December 1865 Johnson said the rebellion had been “suppressed,” while his Attorney General, James Speed, wrote in January, 1866, “though active hostilities have ceased, a state of war still exists over the territory in rebellion.” The different statements had real world consequences. For one thing, former Confederate president Jefferson Davis (who wanted to escape to Cuba and continue the war from there) was imprisoned at Fort Monroe in Virginia. Speed’s language thus made him a prisoner of war. Many in Congress wanted Davis tried as a traitor, an option not available for a POW.
And until it was decided whether the war was over or not US Army soldiers wouldn’t be mustered out. This question was dealt with in a particularly odious way: white soldiers tended to be discharged from service but Black soldiers had to stay in uniform — and were sent to Texas and elsewhere in the South where they were ambushed. (As Vorenburg notes, by September 1865, 85,000 of the 180,000 volunteers still wearing blue uniforms were Black.) In the meantime, Black men and women in the South were still whipped and killed. It was common for Union administrators in the South to forcibly return freed slaves to their former masters where they were abused as if nothing had changed.
Then there were the important matters that couldn’t be acted on until the matter was decided, like the question of when and how representatives of the former Confederate states would be permitted to take seats in Congress. Or how the Freedman Bureau would be set up, funded, and operated. Whether — and for how long — the South would be occupied. And what to do about the Native American tribes who allied themselves wit the Confederacy? Or the Union soldiers who were sent west to fight Indians while the war was still going on and well after Appomattox?
Meanwhile, the North was split between people who were just plain tired of war (and wanted their husbands/sons/brothers/uncles/employees to come back home) and those who wanted the South to be punished as severely as possible. In the South, there were angry voices who refused to concede, or made sure that surrender changed as little as possible in how they lived. As Vorenburg notes, White women in the South were particularly resistant to taking an oath of loyalty to the Federal government. One of them, for example, Kate Stone of Louisiana, refused “submission” to Yankee rule, and “Negro equality,” and wrote that she expected her comrades to join her in “a bloody unequal struggle to last we know not how long.”
All of this is part of the Civil War history that is widely and undeservedly overlooked. Engaging, clarifying, and filled with fascinating anecdotes and modern analogies, “Lincoln’s Peace” enriches our understanding of the forces that shaped and continue to shape our country even today.
Except that as Michael Vorenberg convincingly argues in his book “Lincoln’s Peace,” identifying ‘when the Civil War ended’ is not simple at all. (I will leave it to be discussed elsewhere whether or not, as many have proposed, the Civil War never truly ended and we are fighting it still, albeit by other than military means.)
Consider some of the complicating factors: The Constitution says that only Congress has the authority to declare war. Should it be inferred from this that only Congress can declare a war ended? Can the President as Commander in Chief of US armed forces decide a war is over? Robert E. Lee knew he didn’t have the authority to end the war. He could only surrender his army. But there were many thousands of troops under the command of other Confederate generals, particularly further to the west and in Texas. Lee had no power over them at all. Most importantly, as President of the Confederacy, it was Jefferson Davis who had the sole power to say the war was over, and he sure as hell had no intention of doing so.
Lest anyone take this to be the kind of question only a historian would care about, Vorenberg opens the book with a US officer named Lewis Grant (no relation to Ulysses, though he did serve under the future president). Awarded the Congressional Medal on Honor, Lewis Grant turned down an offer of a command in the army and became a lawyer. In time he got a position as an attorney in the War Department. In 1890 — some 25 years after Appomattox— a case landed on his desk. An army veteran had been denied a pension on the grounds that he had not served in the Civil War. The vet (his name was John Barleyoung) contested the decision, arguing that the Civil War was in fact not yet over in April 1866 when he first enlisted. For Lewis Grant the claim seemed preposterous but he was a lawyer and he was dealing with a legal claim so he began to research the question — and ran into all manner of competing answers (among them, depending on which government office or document was consulted: May 1, 1865; June 2; July 22; April 2, 1866; even — according to the US Supreme Court — August 20, 1866; or maybe not). By picking one date or another, as Vorenberg put it, the War Department was “winging it”:
Barleyoung was still not going to get a pension. But that was almost beside the point. The more important thing was this: Barleyoung’s claim was not crazy. The Civil War had indeed lasted for at least a year beyond Appomattox. The evidence was everywhere, but the U.S. government, along with most Americans, had stuck with a fiction: the Civil War had ended in the spring of 1865. Grant set down his findings in a long report to his boss, Secretary of War [Redfield] Proctor. It began, ‘When did the War of the Rebellion begin, and when did it end?’ “
Vorenburg travels down a number of fascinating paths to flesh out the stories that complicate pinning down a date for the war’s end. We learn of Confederate officers and soldiers who went south in the hope of finding support from the Mexican government for a resumption of hostilities. Of President Andrew Johnson, who as time went on, moved further and further away from the vision Abraham Lincoln has for post-war Reconstruction. In May 11865, Johnson said that the rebellion had been “almost entirely overcome.” As late as December 1865 Johnson said the rebellion had been “suppressed,” while his Attorney General, James Speed, wrote in January, 1866, “though active hostilities have ceased, a state of war still exists over the territory in rebellion.” The different statements had real world consequences. For one thing, former Confederate president Jefferson Davis (who wanted to escape to Cuba and continue the war from there) was imprisoned at Fort Monroe in Virginia. Speed’s language thus made him a prisoner of war. Many in Congress wanted Davis tried as a traitor, an option not available for a POW.
And until it was decided whether the war was over or not US Army soldiers wouldn’t be mustered out. This question was dealt with in a particularly odious way: white soldiers tended to be discharged from service but Black soldiers had to stay in uniform — and were sent to Texas and elsewhere in the South where they were ambushed. (As Vorenburg notes, by September 1865, 85,000 of the 180,000 volunteers still wearing blue uniforms were Black.) In the meantime, Black men and women in the South were still whipped and killed. It was common for Union administrators in the South to forcibly return freed slaves to their former masters where they were abused as if nothing had changed.
Then there were the important matters that couldn’t be acted on until the matter was decided, like the question of when and how representatives of the former Confederate states would be permitted to take seats in Congress. Or how the Freedman Bureau would be set up, funded, and operated. Whether — and for how long — the South would be occupied. And what to do about the Native American tribes who allied themselves wit the Confederacy? Or the Union soldiers who were sent west to fight Indians while the war was still going on and well after Appomattox?
Meanwhile, the North was split between people who were just plain tired of war (and wanted their husbands/sons/brothers/uncles/employees to come back home) and those who wanted the South to be punished as severely as possible. In the South, there were angry voices who refused to concede, or made sure that surrender changed as little as possible in how they lived. As Vorenburg notes, White women in the South were particularly resistant to taking an oath of loyalty to the Federal government. One of them, for example, Kate Stone of Louisiana, refused “submission” to Yankee rule, and “Negro equality,” and wrote that she expected her comrades to join her in “a bloody unequal struggle to last we know not how long.”
All of this is part of the Civil War history that is widely and undeservedly overlooked. Engaging, clarifying, and filled with fascinating anecdotes and modern analogies, “Lincoln’s Peace” enriches our understanding of the forces that shaped and continue to shape our country even today.
March 30, 2025
When did the Civil War end? When did the Peace begin? Did the war end when Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox? When Johnston surrendered to Sherman? When Andrew Johnson declared the war "virtually" over? When Jefferson Davis was captured? With Grant's "guerilla order"? With the Kirby Smith surrender? With Johnson's Proclamation on Amnesty and Reconstruction? How about when the last former Confederate state was allowed to send representatives to Congress? Which one of these milestones, and any number of others, was the "end of the war"?
Then again, which war? The military war or the political war or the cultural war or the emancipation war or the native peoples war?
Obviously, the premise of the book is that the answer is, well, complicated. Or maybe there isn't really an answer. More importantly, and I think the greater message and strength of the book, is why all this is so important. The ramifications of "when the war ended" affects everything from who deserves to get pensions to the balance of power between Congress and the president to whether it is appropriate (and legal) to maintain the "grasp of war" until the rights of African Americans were fully secured. Whether the war has ended or not also affected the military occupation of the South and enforcement of the Reconstruction amendments and civil rights acts, and the protection of freedman against southern violence and KKK intimidation and murder. These things matter, and Vorenberg has done an excellent job parsing out not just the complexity of determining the end of the war (if any), but also why it was so critical to do so.
David J. Kent
Author, Lincoln: The Fire of Genius
Immediate Past President, Lincoln Group of DC
Then again, which war? The military war or the political war or the cultural war or the emancipation war or the native peoples war?
Obviously, the premise of the book is that the answer is, well, complicated. Or maybe there isn't really an answer. More importantly, and I think the greater message and strength of the book, is why all this is so important. The ramifications of "when the war ended" affects everything from who deserves to get pensions to the balance of power between Congress and the president to whether it is appropriate (and legal) to maintain the "grasp of war" until the rights of African Americans were fully secured. Whether the war has ended or not also affected the military occupation of the South and enforcement of the Reconstruction amendments and civil rights acts, and the protection of freedman against southern violence and KKK intimidation and murder. These things matter, and Vorenberg has done an excellent job parsing out not just the complexity of determining the end of the war (if any), but also why it was so critical to do so.
David J. Kent
Author, Lincoln: The Fire of Genius
Immediate Past President, Lincoln Group of DC
June 25, 2025
"Seething American white supremacists, filled with the resentment of defeat and and displacement, were not obsessed with the prospect of Mexicans streaming into the United States." Mr. Vorenberg left out one important adjective in that sentence. Those "seething American white supremacists" were Democrats. There were no admitted Republicans in the Confederate States. Mr. Vorenberg opines, "The real threat at the border came from the whites who stayed in Texas, not the ones who fled to Mexico."
Mr. Vorenberg's book, unfortunately, is clouded with falsehoods and deliberate, in my opinion, omissions of who started the Civil War. No Republican state seceded from the Union. The Southern States were all governed by Democrats.
Mr. Vorenberg's book, unfortunately, is clouded with falsehoods and deliberate, in my opinion, omissions of who started the Civil War. No Republican state seceded from the Union. The Southern States were all governed by Democrats.
June 28, 2025
If you, like most Americans, believe that the Civil War ended with Lee's surrender at Appomattox, think again. In this extensively researched and lucidly written history, Vorenberg makes a persuasive case that the war against the Confederate rebellion lasted well beyond Appomattox and Lincoln's assassination. Illuminating and disturbing, Vorenberg's narrative describes the efforts made on and beyond the battlefield to root out the entrenched villainy of the Confederate Slave Power and makes us reconsider just how much the Confederate Army's surrender actually achieved.
April 15, 2025
Fun to read about a time when "Seething American white supremacists, filled with the resentment of defeat and displacement ... wanted to cross the border -- *into* Mexico. Standing in their way was a U.S. policy barring emigration from within, not immigration from without."
July 22, 2025
I love reading about the US Civil War and had read an article about this book which got me interested in reading it. The book started out well, and parts were quite interesting, but then it got too bogged down in details. At times it truly seemed to slog on as long as the war itself did.
May 31, 2025
Michael Vorenberg has produced a masterful work of historical analysis that fundamentally reshapes our understanding of the Civil War's conclusion and its lasting consequences. By focusing on the war's end rather than its battles, this distinguished historian offers readers a fresh and essential perspective on one of the most critical periods in American history.
What makes this book exceptional is Vorenberg's insight into the profound continuities between pre-war and post-war America. His demonstration that the white South's resistance to racial equality persisted despite military defeat reveals important truths about how deeply entrenched social systems resist even catastrophic challenges. This analysis provides crucial context for understanding not just Reconstruction, but the longer arc of American racial politics.
Vorenberg's examination of how Confederate leaders like Robert E. Lee's lieutenants continued their resistance through terror campaigns represents particularly valuable scholarship. His documentation of this transition from conventional warfare to systematic suppression illuminates patterns that have too often been overlooked in traditional Civil War narratives. This research fills an important gap in our understanding of how defeated armies and ideologies adapt and persist.
Perhaps most powerfully, Vorenberg's central argument—that the Civil War never truly ended—offers a compelling framework for understanding American history's continuities and contradictions. His ability to trace how wartime conflicts transformed into peacetime struggles provides essential insights into the incomplete nature of American democracy and the ongoing challenges of achieving genuine equality. This is sophisticated historical analysis that will change how readers understand both the Civil War era and its enduring legacy in American society.
What makes this book exceptional is Vorenberg's insight into the profound continuities between pre-war and post-war America. His demonstration that the white South's resistance to racial equality persisted despite military defeat reveals important truths about how deeply entrenched social systems resist even catastrophic challenges. This analysis provides crucial context for understanding not just Reconstruction, but the longer arc of American racial politics.
Vorenberg's examination of how Confederate leaders like Robert E. Lee's lieutenants continued their resistance through terror campaigns represents particularly valuable scholarship. His documentation of this transition from conventional warfare to systematic suppression illuminates patterns that have too often been overlooked in traditional Civil War narratives. This research fills an important gap in our understanding of how defeated armies and ideologies adapt and persist.
Perhaps most powerfully, Vorenberg's central argument—that the Civil War never truly ended—offers a compelling framework for understanding American history's continuities and contradictions. His ability to trace how wartime conflicts transformed into peacetime struggles provides essential insights into the incomplete nature of American democracy and the ongoing challenges of achieving genuine equality. This is sophisticated historical analysis that will change how readers understand both the Civil War era and its enduring legacy in American society.
June 20, 2025
Got a lot more out of this book than I originally thought I might when I first started reading. This one analyzes the end of the Civil War. While most hold that the war ended with Lee’s surrender at Appomattox in April 1865, the actual “end” of the war is a harder question to answer. Given communication limitations and the conditions of the war, aspects of the fighting went well beyond that early April date. There were other surrenders in the Eastern US, and fighting out West towards Texas lasted into the summer of 1865. The pursuit of a Confederate raider went all the way to November 1865. Then you have the fight over the “peace”. The integration of the former Confederate states did not go super smoothly, primarily as the fight between President Johnson and the Republican Congress over what constituted that integration and what level Reconstruction should take spanned beyond 1865, thus, opening the door to further debate over the “end of the war.” The status of men like Jeff Davis and other key Confederates also spawned debate and questions. Then you have the question of the end of slavery and the treatment of African Americans. Even with the end of the war and a Confederate defeat, the idea that Blacks were no longer slaves did not sink into the Southern white mindset. So many loose ends from the war remain, and that gets explained in this well-written volume. Highly recommend, as it offers good insight into how difficult the question is to answer about the ending of the Civil War, a conflict that still resonates over 160 later.
December 25, 2024
You can also see this review, along with others I have written, at Mr. Book's Book Reviews.
Thank you, Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Mr. Book just finished Lincoln’s Peace: The Struggle to End the American Civil War, by Michael Vorenberg.
This book will be published on March 18, 2025.
This is a very interesting book that shows that it is uncertain exactly the Civil War ended. The book examines the events after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox and continues over the next few years. It was very well researched and even history buffs will find a lot in the book that they didn’t already know.
The “Juneteenth” chapter was, by far, the best of the book. The book showed the realities of how emancipation took place and how, for weeks, sometimes months, after Lee’s surrender, freedoms was far from reality for many slaves. And, in at least the case of Kentucky, for many slaves, they didn’t get freedom until the next year when the Freedman’s Bureau started to operate in the state.
I give this book an A.
Goodreads and NetGalley require grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, an A equates to 5 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).
This review has been posted at NetGalley, Goodreads and Mr. Book’s Book Reviews
Mr. Book finished reading this on December 24, 2024.
Thank you, Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Mr. Book just finished Lincoln’s Peace: The Struggle to End the American Civil War, by Michael Vorenberg.
This book will be published on March 18, 2025.
This is a very interesting book that shows that it is uncertain exactly the Civil War ended. The book examines the events after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox and continues over the next few years. It was very well researched and even history buffs will find a lot in the book that they didn’t already know.
The “Juneteenth” chapter was, by far, the best of the book. The book showed the realities of how emancipation took place and how, for weeks, sometimes months, after Lee’s surrender, freedoms was far from reality for many slaves. And, in at least the case of Kentucky, for many slaves, they didn’t get freedom until the next year when the Freedman’s Bureau started to operate in the state.
I give this book an A.
Goodreads and NetGalley require grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, an A equates to 5 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).
This review has been posted at NetGalley, Goodreads and Mr. Book’s Book Reviews
Mr. Book finished reading this on December 24, 2024.
April 29, 2025
Here's the question this book attempts to answer: When the Civil War end ? Was it when Lee surrendered to Grant? When Joe Johnston surrendered to Billy Sherman? Was it when Kirby Smith surrendered in Texas? or when Cherokee leader Stand Watie (the last Confederate general). who surrendered on August 20, 1866.
Abraham Lincoln had bits of a plan that he worked on the river boat River Queen in March of 1865. Of course history in the guise of John Wilkes Booth stopped the president before he could implement any plans, which might have made a big answer as to the exact date.
What we got was Andrew Johnson, Radical Republicans, the KKK, and of course Reconstruction or Deconstruction. Depending on where your ancestors lived above or below the Mason Dixon line at the time. Many say it was after Federal Troops left the South, not really a fan of that theory. Then there is Richard Henry Dana (yep the guy wrote Two Years Before the Mast , and his "Grasp of War" which threw oil on the fire.
All in all interesting book that starts with Lincoln in 1863 and in some quarters today still is going on. Perhaps the civil never really ended, food for thought. A long story but worth the read.
Abraham Lincoln had bits of a plan that he worked on the river boat River Queen in March of 1865. Of course history in the guise of John Wilkes Booth stopped the president before he could implement any plans, which might have made a big answer as to the exact date.
What we got was Andrew Johnson, Radical Republicans, the KKK, and of course Reconstruction or Deconstruction. Depending on where your ancestors lived above or below the Mason Dixon line at the time. Many say it was after Federal Troops left the South, not really a fan of that theory. Then there is Richard Henry Dana (yep the guy wrote Two Years Before the Mast , and his "Grasp of War" which threw oil on the fire.
All in all interesting book that starts with Lincoln in 1863 and in some quarters today still is going on. Perhaps the civil never really ended, food for thought. A long story but worth the read.
May 5, 2025
Much of this book is a Talmudic argument as to when the Civil War ended, or more properly when the US government could declare that peace had arrived. It traces all kinds of fighting months and years past Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. It turns out that declaring war over has real consequences for Reconstruction, ending the Freedman's Bureau, awarding of pensions, etc. The book's best features are its expositions recounting the continued rancor and racism prevalent through the South. The problem is that to get to that point the reader might get tired of what seems like nitpicking.
April 22, 2025
Vorenberg's book deals with when did the Civil War actually end, a question fraught with military, legal and political ramifications.
One of the most enduring myths about the Civil War era is that it ended at Appomattox with Grant and Lee's handshake restoring harmony to the Union. The subsequent Confederate surrenders over the next two months are generally treated as afterthoughts. The reality is that the war sputtered to an end over months and years. Of course, the rancor, hatred and racism that spawned the war and was intensified by it did not vanish with the fall of the Confederacy; indeed, we are still living with it.. There was never a treaty signed between the North and South, an impossibility since the Confederacy was never recognized by the Union. This left the actual end date as an open question. Whether the war was truly over and the nation was at peace was very much dependent upon whom you asked - Radical Republicans wanted to delay an end date to allow the use of Federal troops to reconstruct the South and protect newly freed slaves. Democrats and those friendly to the South wanted an end to the War to justify the removal of the troops.
Vorenberg's approach to the War's messy end greatly expanded my understanding of the War and Reconstruction.
One of the most enduring myths about the Civil War era is that it ended at Appomattox with Grant and Lee's handshake restoring harmony to the Union. The subsequent Confederate surrenders over the next two months are generally treated as afterthoughts. The reality is that the war sputtered to an end over months and years. Of course, the rancor, hatred and racism that spawned the war and was intensified by it did not vanish with the fall of the Confederacy; indeed, we are still living with it.. There was never a treaty signed between the North and South, an impossibility since the Confederacy was never recognized by the Union. This left the actual end date as an open question. Whether the war was truly over and the nation was at peace was very much dependent upon whom you asked - Radical Republicans wanted to delay an end date to allow the use of Federal troops to reconstruct the South and protect newly freed slaves. Democrats and those friendly to the South wanted an end to the War to justify the removal of the troops.
Vorenberg's approach to the War's messy end greatly expanded my understanding of the War and Reconstruction.
September 24, 2025
I was primed to be critical of this book. My initial impression upon reading the introduction was that it was going to be a historian trying to be too cute by half, demonstrating that we all say that the Civil War ended at Appomattox on April 9, 1865 but in reality, there are details that show that the war went on after that. "Look at how smart I am by reciting all this additional context." That said, I grew to like the book as Vorenberg laid out his case. The simplest way to put the thesis is that wars rarely end cleanly, especially wars that have gone on for years and ESPECIALLY Civil Wars. We should not expect soldiers to fight and die for a cause for an extended period of time and then suddenly decide not only to stop fighting but also to acknowledge that the other side's war aims were just. Such it was with the American Civil War, which did not lend itself to a clean ending.
After Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Sherman had to convince Joseph Johnston to surrender his (larger) army in North Carolina, a process that went back and forth with a debate over the surrender terms. Sherman thought that he had agreed to terms and then got countermanded by Edwin Stanton, leading to conflict between the two men that extended to the victory parade in Washington. There was fighting thereafter in Macon and Columbus, Georgia before the Confederate units there decided to lay down their arms. The theater in Texas did not die down for a while, as Edmund Kirby Smith refused to surrender. His plan was to go into Mexico and ally with one of the factions fighting there. His instinct was to ally with Benito Juarez but the slaveholders with him opted to go with Maximilian because of promises that they would get to continue as slaveholders. Needless to say, they were picking the wrong side in the conflict within Mexico and they were confirming yet again the inextricable links between the Confederacy and slavery. Vorenberg also covers the naval aspects of the end of the war, both the decision by the Union to end the blockade of the South (one way to signal that the conflict was done) and also the tale of the Shenandoah, which kept sinking American whaling ships in the Pacific well after the end of the war, even after the officers on the ship had made port in San Francisco and read newspapers detailing the dissolution of the Confederacy.
Vorenberg also weaves Native Americans into the narrative, describing the fissures within the Cherokee as to whether they should ally with the Union (John Ross's position) or the Confederacy (Stand Watie's position). Waite ended up as the last Confederate general to surrender. Additionally, he points out that the military conflict against the Confederates rolled into the Indian Wars in the West such that some military units were quite displeased to learn that they would not be disbanded after the Confederacy fell apart but they would instead be fighting the Sioux on the Plains. Many of the key figures in the Civil War (Sherman, Sheridan, and Custer, to use a few examples) ended up in that conflict.
Vorenberg also gets into the larger question of whether the war was one fought not just to preserve the Union, but also to end slavery and establish black political equality. If a major war aim was to end slavery (and that was clearly the case after the Emancipation Proclamation), then the war might have ended upon the ratification of the 13th Amendment or when that Amendment was actually enforced in the country. This included both the South, which had to be occupied by Union soldiers for a period of time after the war, and also the border states, which had to be pulled into complete emancipation. The question of what power the Army would have in the former Confederate states is a major one late in the book, as Grant and Stanton basically had to ignore Andrew Johnson to continue to exercise military control of the region. If they didn't, then Southern sheriffs and judges could free anyone who committed violence against the freedmen and they could also prosecute Union soldiers. Johnson was aggressive about declaring the war over and military rule a think of the past because he was opposed to black civil rights. The Supreme Court got into the fold in Ex Parte Milligan, where they ruled that military courts could not be used against American citizens unless the civil courts were no longer functioning, which led to a debate as to exactly when the Southern courts were functional again. There was also a disagreement as to the President's powers in this regard as Lincoln had used his Article II war powers as a justification and then Congress and others in the Executive branch after Lincoln's death used the "guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government" clause in Article IV. The narrative ends with the fissure between Johnson and the Republicans in Congress over the Freedmen's Bureau coming out of the Reconstruction Act (which Johnson opposed) and then Congress's efforts to prevent Johnson from firing Stanton, which led to the Tenure of Office Act and ultimately Johnson's impeachment, a story that Vorenberg does not tell. Indeed, one of the ironies of the book is that Vorenberg makes it clear that it is hard to specify an end date for the Civil War and I suspect that he had a hard time figuring out where to end his narrative. Kinda like how I feel with this review...
After Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Sherman had to convince Joseph Johnston to surrender his (larger) army in North Carolina, a process that went back and forth with a debate over the surrender terms. Sherman thought that he had agreed to terms and then got countermanded by Edwin Stanton, leading to conflict between the two men that extended to the victory parade in Washington. There was fighting thereafter in Macon and Columbus, Georgia before the Confederate units there decided to lay down their arms. The theater in Texas did not die down for a while, as Edmund Kirby Smith refused to surrender. His plan was to go into Mexico and ally with one of the factions fighting there. His instinct was to ally with Benito Juarez but the slaveholders with him opted to go with Maximilian because of promises that they would get to continue as slaveholders. Needless to say, they were picking the wrong side in the conflict within Mexico and they were confirming yet again the inextricable links between the Confederacy and slavery. Vorenberg also covers the naval aspects of the end of the war, both the decision by the Union to end the blockade of the South (one way to signal that the conflict was done) and also the tale of the Shenandoah, which kept sinking American whaling ships in the Pacific well after the end of the war, even after the officers on the ship had made port in San Francisco and read newspapers detailing the dissolution of the Confederacy.
Vorenberg also weaves Native Americans into the narrative, describing the fissures within the Cherokee as to whether they should ally with the Union (John Ross's position) or the Confederacy (Stand Watie's position). Waite ended up as the last Confederate general to surrender. Additionally, he points out that the military conflict against the Confederates rolled into the Indian Wars in the West such that some military units were quite displeased to learn that they would not be disbanded after the Confederacy fell apart but they would instead be fighting the Sioux on the Plains. Many of the key figures in the Civil War (Sherman, Sheridan, and Custer, to use a few examples) ended up in that conflict.
Vorenberg also gets into the larger question of whether the war was one fought not just to preserve the Union, but also to end slavery and establish black political equality. If a major war aim was to end slavery (and that was clearly the case after the Emancipation Proclamation), then the war might have ended upon the ratification of the 13th Amendment or when that Amendment was actually enforced in the country. This included both the South, which had to be occupied by Union soldiers for a period of time after the war, and also the border states, which had to be pulled into complete emancipation. The question of what power the Army would have in the former Confederate states is a major one late in the book, as Grant and Stanton basically had to ignore Andrew Johnson to continue to exercise military control of the region. If they didn't, then Southern sheriffs and judges could free anyone who committed violence against the freedmen and they could also prosecute Union soldiers. Johnson was aggressive about declaring the war over and military rule a think of the past because he was opposed to black civil rights. The Supreme Court got into the fold in Ex Parte Milligan, where they ruled that military courts could not be used against American citizens unless the civil courts were no longer functioning, which led to a debate as to exactly when the Southern courts were functional again. There was also a disagreement as to the President's powers in this regard as Lincoln had used his Article II war powers as a justification and then Congress and others in the Executive branch after Lincoln's death used the "guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government" clause in Article IV. The narrative ends with the fissure between Johnson and the Republicans in Congress over the Freedmen's Bureau coming out of the Reconstruction Act (which Johnson opposed) and then Congress's efforts to prevent Johnson from firing Stanton, which led to the Tenure of Office Act and ultimately Johnson's impeachment, a story that Vorenberg does not tell. Indeed, one of the ironies of the book is that Vorenberg makes it clear that it is hard to specify an end date for the Civil War and I suspect that he had a hard time figuring out where to end his narrative. Kinda like how I feel with this review...
April 24, 2025
I’m not fond of history books but generally do enjoy reading those that are about the Civil War and Lincoln. Having said that I found this to be a difficult read in that there is an abundance of detail about events that “clouded” when the Civil War really ended. Many thought it was Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, but the reality seems to linger on for quite an extended period of time.
July 7, 2025
Lincoln’s Peace (badly named because Lincoln was gone from the scene) begins with a seemingly simple question — when did the Civil War end. The question is of course instructive - when do most modern wars end? Does a peace treaty end a war if the parties are still fighting? Does the cessation of fighting end the war if there is no peace treaty. Who won a war if a major objective of the victor is not accomplished or is accomplished only in part. Is a war over if it causes other somewhat related armed conflicts which continue — in this case the Indian Wars. The civil war raised all these questions. Many consequences depend on both the practical and legal answers to that question. The book starts with an easy one: is a person who enlisted in 1865 entitled to a Civil War pension? He would be if the war were still going on. What about the objectives? Was it enough to pass the 13th Amendment and extinguish slavery legally if it (or its near equivalent indentured servitude complete with whippings) continued, and blacks did not have the right to vote, or in some cases even testify or serve on a jury.
The book is occasionally a bit circular, and I found myself thinking I read parts more than once. That may in part be because the problems were somewhat circular, each affecting several other aspects. But overall the case study is both interesting in its details, and its deconstruction of the simplicity of High School history. How simple it was when the war ended at Appomattox. And yet, one wonders, has it ended yet?
The book is occasionally a bit circular, and I found myself thinking I read parts more than once. That may in part be because the problems were somewhat circular, each affecting several other aspects. But overall the case study is both interesting in its details, and its deconstruction of the simplicity of High School history. How simple it was when the war ended at Appomattox. And yet, one wonders, has it ended yet?
October 12, 2025
While l learned a lot about what happened at the end of the Civil War, I found this book to be a long and a difficult slog to get through given the amount of details the author covers in his quest to answer the question-
“when did the Civil War really end”. I almost didn’t finish.
At the beginning of the book, the author points out that most people ( myself included) tend to believe the Civil War ended when Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House in April 1865.
He then goes on to explain how & why defining a true end date for the war was and is very difficult. For example
- Lincoln didn’t declare victory
- Davis did not surrender
- battles continued for some time ( not all southern armies were under Lee, and communication of Lee’s surrender took a long time to reach the remaining Southern armies through the country.
One Southern ship ( the Shenandoah)fought on for almost 6 months after Lee’s surrender before they received word to cease fighting.
Oppression and mistreatment of blacks continued in the South
Outlawing slavery in all states did not occur until Dec 1865.
Etc
“when did the Civil War really end”. I almost didn’t finish.
At the beginning of the book, the author points out that most people ( myself included) tend to believe the Civil War ended when Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House in April 1865.
He then goes on to explain how & why defining a true end date for the war was and is very difficult. For example
- Lincoln didn’t declare victory
- Davis did not surrender
- battles continued for some time ( not all southern armies were under Lee, and communication of Lee’s surrender took a long time to reach the remaining Southern armies through the country.
One Southern ship ( the Shenandoah)fought on for almost 6 months after Lee’s surrender before they received word to cease fighting.
Oppression and mistreatment of blacks continued in the South
Outlawing slavery in all states did not occur until Dec 1865.
Etc
July 17, 2025
Great book. Started a little slowly, focusing on the idea that its hard to know when the war actually ended. Thought he took more time than needed. Also throughout felt like a bit of redundancies, few sentences I think even repeated in blocks. But otherwise, great read.
Always wonder what would've happened if southerners gave up the idea of slavery. Of course northerners had their own share of racists but the extent of southern hatred, man, can ruin a lot and it sure has. I'm sure there's still good amount of people who fondly look back on Confederacy, hard not to think of them as morons.
Always wonder what would've happened if southerners gave up the idea of slavery. Of course northerners had their own share of racists but the extent of southern hatred, man, can ruin a lot and it sure has. I'm sure there's still good amount of people who fondly look back on Confederacy, hard not to think of them as morons.
August 29, 2025
The apparently simple question - when did the Civil War end? - leads Vorenberg down numerous significant thought trails, not to mention, resonates with more contemporary notions of "endless wars." The tangled military, legal, political and social aims of the North, the continued, until this day, intransigence of the South to at least some of those aims, make for interesting, at times depressing, reading and reflection. Vorenberg quotes Faulkner to the effect that war's purpose is to break a fever. Some fevers never break.
October 13, 2025
Michael Vorenberg’s “Lincoln’s Peace” is a worthy entrant in the Lincoln canon. Working through the question of when peace was achieved in the Civil War is an interesting one. The narrative starts out well and holds the reader’s interest. It slows down significantly in the final third. Perhaps the recounting of an inept racist president, Johnson, making decisions based on his worst impulses hit too close to home given our current Tr*mpian nightmare also made for heavier reading. As I said at the beginning, still a worthy entrant in the Lincoln library.
August 8, 2025
Lincoln's Peace is a great examination of exactly when the Civil War ended, which it turns out is not such an easy question to answer. I've read a lot about the subject and was surprised how much I didn't know about the fighting that took place after Lee surrendered to Grant. I think the author errs into trying to shoehorn the wars against various native tribes into the narrative but overall this is really thought-provoking. Makes you wonder if the Civil War ever really ended.
April 18, 2025
This book was amazing. I learned so many new things about the Civil War and I enjoyed the way the author provided a substantial amount of evidence from both sides. It’s a heartbreaking walk through of war and a story of what our nation lived through. A definite read! 4/5 ⭐️
July 3, 2025
Excellent, well researched and very informative. (Why do authors feel a need to bring in current or near current events when discussing something that has happened more than 150 years ago?).
Read this book and enjoy it.
Read this book and enjoy it.
February 17, 2025
Fascinating read of President Lincoln and the end of the Civil War.
April 21, 2025
So good! This is a viewpoint of a current historian and he leaves the answer to the reader. I enjoyed the other reasons that he presented.
May 16, 2025
It was full of interesting insights, but it was a bit of a struggle to finish.
May 19, 2025
I did not want a replay word by word of the civil war. I wanted to hear more about what his plan was for ending the war.
June 28, 2025
Very dry but interesting. Though not the premise of the book, it’s made me reconsider whether the Civil War ever ended or if it’s just be waged in a different mode today.
August 11, 2025
Fascinating history!
August 17, 2025
Great read if you like the Civil War. I learned a lot about the hatred that remained after the military ending of the war.
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