Oppressive heat tormented the capital city, with temperatures approaching one hundred degrees.  Later in the day, thunderstorms with heavy rains were observed across the area.  (By John Osborne) 

Two four storey buildings on South Delaware Street in Philadelphia filled with merchants' goods caught fire in the early afternoon and burned to the ground over the next few hours.  Adding to the nature of the fire were thousands of dollars worth of Fourth of July fireworks which went up with spectacular effect, showering the neighborhood with a huge impromptu display.  No injuries were reported but a loss of $100,000 was estimated. (By John Osborne) 

A major post-war military reorganization was announced in Washington.  The country was divided into five main military "divisions."  The Division of the Atlantic, headquartered in Philadelphia, of the Mississippi (St. Louis), of the Gulf (New Orleans), of the Tennessee (Nashville), and the Pacific (San Francisco).  Eighteen subordinate commands were also set out, including one in each former Confederate state.  (By John Osborne) 

The week before, the Virginia legislature eased restrictions on former Confederates re-entering government.  Enraged and worried state Unionists held a mass meeting in Winchester, Virginia to protest  "extending the right of suffrage to former rebels and their aiders and abettors." As feared, former Confederates soon returned to city and state offices across the state, often setting up conflict with Union authorities.  (By John Osborne)

In a move that angered Uinionists and Radical Republicans in Virginia, the provisional Virginia legislature, sitting in Richmond for the first time, made several conciliatory adjustments to state regulations.  These included most importantly, the replacement of the loyalty "Alexandria Oath" with the far less restrictive "United States Amnesty Oath."  The result was an early return of former Confedarates to state government and trouble with Union authorities.  (By John Osborne)  

The "Restored Government of Virginia" had been operating as a largely ineffective "legislature in exile" under Francis Pierpont in Alexandria, Virginia since 1863.  With the end of the Confederacy, President Johnson recognised the legislature and made Pierpont provisional governor of the state.  Pierpont then moved the legislature back to Richmond where it met for the last time before elections between June 19 and June 23, 1865.  (By John Osborne) 

The "Restored Government of Virginia" had been operating as a largely ineffective "legislature in exile" under Francis Pierpont in Alexandria, Virginia since 1863.  With the end of the Confederacy, President Johnson recognised the legislature and made Pierpont provisional governor of the state.  Pierpont then moved the legislature back to Richmond where it met for the last time before elections on June 19, 1865.  (By John Osborne) 

Stand Watie, a leading chief of the Cherokee Nation, commanded the Indian Cavalry of the Confederacy's Army of the Trans-Mississippi with the rank of brigadier-general.  Near Doaksville in Indian Territory, he surrendered his forces to Lieutenant-Colonel A.C. Matthews, the last Confederate general to surrender.  His men were allowed to disperse to their homes.  (By John Osborne)

Captain James Waddell of the C.S.S. Shenandoah rejected all news of the Confederacy's collapse and embarked on his campaign to devastate the American waling trade in the northern Pacific.  He began his quest with the capture and burning of the Jirah Swift of New Bedford, Massachusetts.  Before the month was out, the whaling fleet had lost twenty of the fifty odd ships operating near the Pacific Arctic Circle.  (By John Osborne) 

On the most destructive day ever of Confederate commerce raiding, almost two months after Appomattox, the C.S.S. Shenandoah captured eleven United States whaling ships near the Arctic Circle in the Pacific and burned nine of them, all in around eight hours.  The warship's captain, James Waddell, refused to believe reports from the captured crews of the collapse of the Confederacy. The single day's destruction was estimated to cost more than $400,000.  (By John Osborne)