The End of the Civil War is the decisive turning point that converts the story’s military danger into a postwar struggle over justice, property, identity, and family. The cessation of fighting brings relief to Colonel Stanton, Jack Ruthven, Mrs. Ruthven, and Marion Ruthven, but it does not end the consequences of the war: Colonel Stanton must recover from his wounds, confront Dr. Mackey through legal action, and secure the fortune connected with Jack’s true parentage.

Causes and Wartime Background

The war’s pressure has shaped nearly every stage of the story. The district around the Ruthven plantation, known as Oldville, suffers from advancing armies, closed shops, frightened civilians, wounded soldiers, and the threat of irregular violence. The Southern army is driven back until Confederate camps lie less than four miles from Jack Ruthven’s home, while cannon fire makes the military crisis an immediate domestic reality rather than a distant national event.

The Ruthven mansion becomes both private property and a place of medical refuge. Six wounded Confederates are carried into the sitting room and placed on cots under a surgeon’s care. Jack Ruthven then organizes nineteen boys of his company, each carrying a loaded gun or pistol, to defend the homestead against guerrillas who seek to loot it. His defense rests not only on force but on a moral distinction: the house is private property, and its occupants are sheltering wounded men rather than participating in the attack.

The narrative contrasts this improvised local defense with the conduct of the guerrillas. A troop of cavalry passes the homestead without interfering, but a company of looting guerrillas follows behind and attempts to enter. Later, three guerrillas fight Old Ben and two Home Guard boys while trying to steal horses from the stable. These episodes show how the war disrupts ordinary property, commerce, transport, and medical care, while also distinguishing honorable military conduct from violence undertaken for plunder.

The End of Fighting

The war’s conclusion is presented after Colonel Stanton’s recovery has begun, but his recovery remains slow. By the time he is able to move about again, the great Civil War has become a thing of the past. The ending therefore joins national history to bodily recovery: the war ends, but its final meaning is measured through the survival of a wounded officer and the relief felt by those who have endured the danger with him.

The cessation of hostilities changes the story’s governing problem. During the conflict, Jack Ruthven must protect the plantation, resist guerrillas, endure capture, and survive two days of brutal confinement in a cave with hardly enough food to prevent starvation. Dr. Mackey even threatens him directly and orders Confederate soldiers to conduct him to camp. Once the war is over, military coercion no longer provides the central mechanism of danger. The conflict shifts from armed survival to prosecution, financial recovery, and the establishment of the truth about Jack’s family.

Legal and Material Aftermath

As soon as it becomes possible, Colonel Stanton resigns from the army. His resignation marks a deliberate passage from military duty to civilian justice. He begins proceedings against Dr. Mackey and works to recover the fortune owed to himself and Jack Ruthven. The recovered papers therefore acquire their full consequence only after the war: what had been endangered amid battle, captivity, and guerrilla violence can now be used in a legal and financial settlement.

The prosecution succeeds. Dr. Mackey receives a ten-year prison sentence, while within a year Colonel Stanton and Jack Ruthven come into possession of a fortune worth one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. The conclusion makes the inheritance more than a reward for survival. It confirms that the wartime mystery has a material resolution and that Dr. Mackey’s fraud and coercion cannot permanently control Jack’s identity or property.

Reconstruction of the Family

Colonel Stanton initially considers returning to the North and settling there, but Mrs. Ruthven does not want to part with Jack Ruthven. The household therefore chooses continuity over separation: Colonel Stanton, Mrs. Ruthven, Marion Ruthven, and Jack remain at the plantation. The decision gives the postwar ending a domestic form, placing the restoration of family life beside the restoration of wealth.

A year later, Colonel Stanton marries the widow Ruthven. Through the marriage, Mrs. Ruthven becomes once more Jack Ruthven’s mother in the household, and Colonel Stanton’s relationship with Jack is integrated into the family’s everyday structure. Jack welcomes the arrangement because it preserves the maternal bond he already possesses rather than forcing him to exchange his established home for a new one.

Historical and Narrative Significance

The End of the Civil War does not erase the war’s violence, but it allows the novel to redirect its energy toward accountability and reconciliation. The contrast between looting guerrillas, the protection of wounded soldiers, Colonel Stanton’s respect for private property, and Dr. Mackey’s wartime coercion gives the ending an ethical dimension: peace makes it possible to distinguish lawful authority from predation and to pursue wrongs that could not be settled amid combat.

The event also completes the movement from uncertainty to recognized belonging. Jack Ruthven begins within the Ruthven household as a foster son whose origins are unclear; the postwar settlement places him alongside Colonel Stanton in possession of the recovered fortune and within a family renewed by marriage. National reconciliation and domestic reconstruction are thus linked. The war’s end closes the battlefield, but its deeper consequence is the reordering of relationships, evidence, property, and family allegiance after the guns fall silent.