Thirty-seven thousand men and
officers were paroled in North Carolina--exclusive, of course, of the
thousands who had slipped away to their homes during the suspension of
hostilities.
After Appomattox the rebellion fell to pieces all at once. Lee
surrendered less than one sixth of the Confederates in arms on April 9.
The armies that still remained, though inconsiderable when compared with
the mighty host under the national colors, were yet infinitely larger
than any Washington ever commanded, and capable of strenuous resistance
and of incalculable mischief. But the march of Sherman from Atlanta to
the sea, and his northward progress through the Carolinas, had
predisposed the great interior region to make an end of strife: a
tendency which was greatly promoted by the masterly raid of General J.H.
Wilson's cavalry through Alabama, and his defeat of Forrest at Selma.
An officer of Taylor's staff came to Canby's headquarters on April 19 to
make arrangements for the surrender of all the Confederate forces east
of the Mississippi not already paroled by Sherman and Wilson, embracing
some forty-two thousand men. The terms were agreed upon and signed on
May 4, at the village of Citronelle in Alabama. At the same time and
place the Confederate Commodore Farrand surrendered to Rear-Admiral
Thatcher all the naval forces Of the Confederacy in the neighborhood of
Mobile--a dozen vessels and some hundreds of officers.
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