The Civil war ended when?

Answer 1

Good question.

There was no peace treaty, because Congress did not recognise the Confederacy as a sovereign nation with whom to deal. Congress felt it had simply put down a rebellion of some of its states.

Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox (April 9th 1865) is taken as the notional end of hostilities, since Lee was the Confederate General-in-Chief, and there could be no serious battles beyond this date.

Johnston's army was still in the field in North Carolina, where it surrendered later in the month.

The official winding-up of the Confederacy, at its final cabinet meeting in mid-May, could be taken as the last defining moment of the war, but some skirmishing still went on in the West, and some Confederate officers fled to Mexico rather than surrender.

Talk to some Southerners today, and you may get the feeling that the Civil War isn't over yet.