The climax was not reached until September of 1864, when crushing Union victories spelled imminent victory—and Lincoln’s reelection. The following April, Robert E. Lee surrendered on Palm Sunday. Lincoln was assassinated five days later, on Good Friday. The outcome was laden in religious symbolism. But was it worth the suffering? “In 1865,” observes historian James McPherson, “few black people and not many northerners doubted the answer.” Unlike other Crises, the Civil War ended less with optimism than with a sense of tragedy having run its course.
