Confederate Major General Dabney Maury, the Commander of the Confederate District of the Gulf, was running out of options on April 11, 1865. Two of his major forts, Spanish Fort and Fort Blakely, had fallen and were now under Union control.
Maury had retreated to Mobile with his depleted forces of 4,500, hoping to eventually join with General Joseph Johnston’s Army of Tennessee.
The general began evacuating Mobile on April 11th. Troops removed their supplies, burned cotton, and dismantled works. Maury led his soldiers to Meridian, Mississippi.
On April 12th, the mayor of Mobile, Robert H. Slough, surrendered his city.
When Maury learned that Johnston surrendered to Sherman, his plans of joining the Army of Tennessee collapsed.
Maury surrendered to Union General Canby at Citronelle, Alabama, on May 4th.
He and his troops were paroled on May 14th.
-Sandra Merville Hart
Sources
“Conclusion of the American Civil War,” Wikipedia.com, 2018/03/21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conclusion_of_the_American_Civil_War.
“Conclusion of the American Civil War,” Wikiwand.com, 2018/03/22 http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Conclusion_of_the_American_Civil_War.
“Dabney Herndon Maury,” Wikisource, 2018/03/22 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Southern_Historical_Society_Papers/Volume_27/Dabney_Herndon_Maury.
Kane, Robert. “Battle of Spanish Fort,” Encyclopedia of Alabama, 2018/03/25 http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-3730.
Long, E.B. and Long, Barbara. The Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac 1861-1865, A Da Capo Paperback, 1971.
Plante, Trevor K. “Ending the Bloodshed,” National Archives, 2018/03/21
https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2015/spring/cw-surrenders.html.
Sandra Merville Hart 