It was on the 2nd of June that Lord Russell in the House of Lords declared the Civil War in America at an end, and refused Confederate vessels any further rights of harbour in English ports. It has been shown how General Sherman’s devastating march through Georgia exposed the real weakness of the South. At the end of 1864 Hood’s army was pining away in Alabama or Tennessee, and Beauregard, with 20,000 men, alone stood between Sherman’s legions, flushed with victory, and the harassed and outnumbered army of Lee. On Christmas Day the Confederates repelled an attack by Butler on Wilmington, but on the 14th of January, 1865, when operations were renewed by General Terry and Admiral Porter, the key of the position was easily taken, and the Confederates were deprived of their only free and practicable outlet to the sea. On the 17th of February Charleston was evacuated. Sherman had already set forth on his march to the north--Beauregard retreating rapidly before him. And yet, though they thus had victory within their grasp, the leaders of the North made one last effort to conciliate the South. “Although no authorised version of the negotiations has ever been given to the public,” says Mr. Sterne, “it was conceded that, with the single exception of slavery and submission to the authority of the Union on the part of the South, every condition that the Southern States could ask would be submitted to by the North, including the adoption of the Southern debt and the reimbursement to the Southern slave-holders for slaves lost.”[230] In a moment of insanity the Southern Government rejected these generous terms, and so the war went on. Sherman’s movement to the north enabled Grant to press Lee with effect. He forced him back to Petersburg and Richmond. On the 1st of April both towns were captured, and Lee was not only pursued but overtaken and beaten in his last fight. “General,” wrote Grant to his fallen foe on the 7th of April, “the result of the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the army of Northern Virginia in this struggle. I feel that it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood, by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate States Army known as the Army of Northern Virginia.” The capitulation was arranged on terms which were extremely generous to the vanquished. No prisoners were taken. The officers were paroled, and the troops were all permitted to return home on condition of submitting to the Federal Government. Within a few days Johnston surrendered to Sherman on the same terms, and on the 18th of April the war was at an end.