After the Union victory in the Battle of Nashville (December 15–16, 1864), Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas ordered Maj. Gen. James H. Wilson to march into the heart of the Deep South and destroy the major Confederate supply centers at Selma, Alabama, and Columbus, Georgia.

Wilson left Gravelly Springs, Alabama, on March 22, 1865, heading for Selma, a major manufacturing and supply center.

The Battle of Selma was fought on April 2, 1865, against the leadership of Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, whose men were hopelessly outnumbered by the Union troops.

Forrest managed to inflict heavy casualties on the attackers, but Wilson's raiders finally broke through the defenses and captured Selma by 7 p.m. that evening.

Confederate Major General Howell Cobb had been placed in charge of whatever forces he could gather, and he did his best to prepare to defend Columbus.

In addition to preparing strong fortified positions on the high ground in Girard on the west side of the Chattahoochee, Cobb ordered the base of the bridges to be wrapped in cotton and doused with turpentine.

As the sun began to set, General Robert Toombs (CSA) telegraphed Governor Joseph E. Brown of Georgia telling him that a skirmish had occurred.

[11][12] Lamar was previously known for his role in underwriting the illegal voyage of Wanderer, which landed 409 Africans on Jekyll Island outside Brunswick, Georgia in 1858.

On the morning of April 17, 1865, General Wilson ordered the destruction of all resources in Columbus that could aid the Confederate war effort.

A review of the hospital records of the Battle of Columbus reveal the actual number of casualties incurred were considerably higher than previously reported.

While the initial Union casualty list reported by General Wilson indicated a loss of 25 men during the assault, the actual number was 60.

The Union army entirely destroyed the Confederate manufacturing facilities in both Columbus, Georgia and Girard (now Phenix City), Alabama.

[13] Immediately after the victory at Columbus, Wilson led his raiders east to Macon, Georgia and occupied that city without resistance.

Ten days after the Battle of Columbus, the last great army of the Confederacy, under General Joseph E. Johnston, surrendered at Bennett Place, North Carolina.

Some claim that this was the last battle of the war, rejecting President Johnson's definition and preferring to refer to the Confederates there as "organized forces" of the Confederacy.

On May 30, 1865 Brevet Major General Emory Upton reported for his division in the Wilson Raid, in the Official Records, that the Battle of Columbus was the "closing conflict of the war.

'"[25] General Edward F. Winslow wrote, "I have always considered that engagement, by the number present and the results achieved, to be the final battle of the war.

In response, in 1935 the Georgia state legislature passed a resolution identifying the battle as the last of the Civil War and calling again for a national battlefield park to be established there.

Representatives of Auburn University posted an appeal in 2013 to help preserve Ft. Gilmer, one of the earthwork redoubts on the Alabama side of the Chattahoochee River.

[29] In 2015, Columbus State University Professor Virginia Causey addressed the topic of last battle status in an article in the local Ledger-Enquirer paper.

"[31] Bellware said that the report had numerous factual errors, has no date and credits no author calling into question its attribution to the Department of the Interior.

The report argues that the engagement in Columbus, which included major generals and thousands of combatants on both sides, does not rise to the level of a battle.

However, it concludes that Palmito Ranch, a much smaller engagement with colonels commanding and a few hundred combatants, should be ranked as the last battle of the war.