The war that began with South Carolina announcing secession from the union of states, followed by ten others, forming the “Confederate States of America”, and the shots fired on Fort Sumter, ended with General Robert E. Lee surrendering at Appomattox in the first week of April. And, unfortunately, with the assasination of President Abraham Lincoln, but the process of reconciliation had to remain on track. President Andrew Johnson, taking over the Lincoln, declared hostilities over on May 10, marking the end of the war period. Three months later he would announce the restoration of civil government in the former confederate states.

On this day, August 20 in 1866, months after the fighting stopped, President Andrew Johnson formally declared the Civil War over — that “Peace, Order, Tranquillity, and Civil Authority Now Exists in and Throughout the Whole of the United States of America.”

Texas was the main cause of the delay: as late as April of 1866 the Presidential proclamation declaring the insurrection over omitted Texas (final battles of the war were fought there, after Apoomatox). The August proclamation essentially included Texas in the previous April 2 resolution.