<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> <Ul> <Li> Palmito Ranch </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> Palmito Ranch </Li> </Ul> <P> The Battle of Palmito Ranch, also known as the Battle of Palmito Hill, is generally recognized as the final battle of the American Civil War . It was fought May 12 and 13, 1865, on the banks of the Rio Grande east of Brownsville, Texas and a few miles from the seaport of Los Brazos de Santiago, more than a month after Robert E. Lee had surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant in the Eastern Theater . Though the Battle of Appomattox Court House is identified as the last major battle of the war, Palmito Ranch was the last engagement between organized forces of the Union Army and Confederate States Army involving casualties . </P> <P> Union and Confederate forces in southern Texas had been observing an unofficial truce, but Union Colonel Theodore H. Barrett ordered an attack on a Confederate camp near Fort Brown for unknown reasons; anecdotes suggest he wanted to see combat before the war ended . The Union attackers captured a few prisoners, but the following day the attack was repulsed near Palmito Ranch by Colonel John Salmon Ford, and the battle became a Confederate victory . Union forces were surprised by Confederate artillery, said to have been supplied by the French Army occupying the nearby Mexican town of Matamoros . Rumors also persist that Confederates were assisted by a steam - powered French gun boat patrolling the Rio Grande . </P>

Where was the last civil war battle fought