ABSTRACT
In April 1865, the military phase of the Civil War effectively ended when the Confederacy’s two principle armies, the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of Tennessee surrendered to Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman, respectively. However, the result was not immediately accepted by everyone in the South. Jefferson Davis fled Virginia insisting that the Confederacy had not died at all and was still capable of achieving some manner of independence, until his own capture in Georgia a few weeks later. A few small units, mostly in the trans-Mississippi region, did not immediately give up the cause, but even for those die-hards the inevitable conclusion that they had lost their bid for independence was not long in coming as they stacked arms and rejoined the United States by the time summer arrived. The few desperate cries for a guerilla campaign fell on mostly deaf ears and were actively discouraged by Robert E. Lee and other realistic leaders. As the weather heated up in late spring of 1865, the reality was clear to all; the North had won and the South had lost the Civil War.
