Today marks the last organized resistance in the American Civil War, back in 1865. Resistance elsewhere had finished three weeks earlier, but it wasn't until today that the forces west of the Mississippi finally surrendered. Even then, the Confederate navy still held Charleston. Wars are always like this, they end, not with a bang, but a rather drawn out and scrappy whimper. Even today, there are many people who don't know the extent of the Civil War, which left an estimated half a million dead and many more crippled for life. The films based on the conflict have often been rather frivolous - with some notable exceptions, of course. Do I have to mention Gone With the Wind again, as the worst film ever made?
Of course I do!
In other news ...
In 1940 on this day, the evacuation of the beaches of Dunkirk began with the sailing of the flotilla of 700 or so rather motley craft from the shores of England. As in the war above, this day is often quoted as the day of the Dunkirk evacuation, but it wasn't half as neat as that and you only have to think for a minute to realise that you are not going to get 400,000 men or thereabouts off a beach in five minutes. Even so, it was the most amazing undertaking and remarkably successful. It was just as well for morale that no one knew at the time that no Allied troops would land on French beaches again until D Day on 6th June 1944.
