Unaware of Lee's surrender to Grant and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Union and Confederates clashed in the Battle of Columbus, Georgia, on Easter Sunday, April 16, 1865, when a Union detachment under General James H. Wilson attacked the city and burned many of the industrial buildings.
By the time of the Spanish-American War, the city's modernization included the addition of trolleys extending to outlying neighborhoods such as Rose Hill and Lakebottom, and a new water works.