Unaware of Lee 's surrender on April 9 and the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on April 14 , General James H. Wilson 's Raiders continued their march through Alabama into Georgia . On April 16 , the Battle of Columbus , Georgia was fought . This battle – erroneously – has been argued to be the " last battle of the Civil War " and equally erroneously asserted to be " widely regarded " as such . Columbus fell to Wilson 's Raiders about midnight on April 16 , and most of its manufacturing capacity was destroyed on the 17th . Confederate Colonel John Stith Pemberton , the inventor of Coca-Cola , was wounded in this battle which resulted in his obsession with pain-killing formulas , ultimately ending in the recipe for his celebrated drink
assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Conclusion of the American Civil War