The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-10-19
THE LAST BATTLE
OF THE WAR BETWEEN THE
 S STATES.
Movement on Foot to Place Tablet on Alabama Side of New Bridge at Colum-
 bus, Ga.

Columbus Special to Atlanta Constitution.
 To commemorate appropriately the bat tie of Columbus in connection with the new steel bridge which Columbus Is to build across the Chattahoochee River is a sentimental and appropriate feeling now prevalent in Columbus.
 It was near the Alabama end of the bridge that the last battle east of the Mississippi River-and what Is now said to have been the last real battle of the civil war-was fought. It is now pro- posed to erect at that end of the bridge a marble tablet bearing appropriate in- scription.
 Charles Jewett Swift writes interesting ly in support of his claim that the battle of Columbus was, officially considered, the last zattle of the civil war. He says in part:
 The Worlds Almanac records the last battle of civil war to have been at Co., lumbus, Ga, on April Is, 1865 The site of this battle was at the entrance of the bridge across the Chattahoochee River. on the Alabama side.
 General Lee surrendered at Appomat- tox on the 9th of April, 1865. President Lincoln was assassinated on the I4th of April, 1865.
 General Johnston surrendered on April 26, 1865, preceded by an armistice between him and General Sherman, com mencing soon after the surrender at Ap- pomattox.
 President Davis was captured on the 10th of May, 1865. General Kirby Smith fought the battle of Boco Chico, on the Rio Grande. Texas, on May 26 1865, and on the same day surrendered. but many of the officers and men under him in the trans Mississippi department escaped into Mexico and enlisted in the cause of Maximillian. The battle of Boco Chico was quite a while subsequent to the sur- renders of Generals Lee and Johnston, and more than two weeks after the cap ture of President Davis. the civil and military head of the Confederate Govern ment. It can safely be assumed that Kirby Smith had heard of the armies of the Confederacy surrendering. But at the time of the battle of Boco Chico his men were making toward the Mexican border, getting out of the Jurisdiction of the Confederacy and the United States.
 The fight at Boco Chico cannot be re- garded otherwise than a warlike, des- ultory' act. with no remnant of the Con- federate civil or military establishment left to sustain or sanction it as a battle of the civil war.
 At the time of the battle of Columbus, Ga, April 16. 1865. Lee had surrendered. but Johnston had not surrendered, and
 
 captured. nor had he and his cabinet sub mitted to equalization.
 Therefore, the battle at Columbus was a battle of and during the war, and Is clearly entitled to distinction as the last battle of the war and the last duly au- thorized military stand of the then exist ing Confederate Government. The con- test should be commemorated by monu- ment or marble tablet upon which should be inscribed the character of the event and its chapter in history. In the com pletion of the new bridge, this should be done.
 Colonel Charley Lamar of Savannah. Ga, was killed in this battle at the enr trance to the bridge and if the struggle is recorded as the last battle of the war. Colonel Lamar will go down in history as being the last man killed in a battle of the civil war. Colonel Lamar was the last man to bring negroes from the west coast of Africa to be sold as slaves in the South. This was just prior to the war. His ship was the Wanderer, land- ing or attempting to land at Savannah with it's cargo of human chattels. Gen. eral Henry R. Jackson. as United States District Attorney, instituted proceedings in the United States Court to prevent the discharge of the Wanderers cargo and to enforce the penalties against Colonel La mar for the violation of the Federal law for the suppression of the African slave trade.
 "wllson's Federal cavalry was concen- trated against the band of Confederates. opposing them on the Alabama side of the Fourteenth Street bridge"