Their despondency increased with each returning day, and especially after the battle of Sailor's Creek.

They threw away their arms in constantly increasing numbers, dropping out of the ranks and betaking themselves to the woods in the hope of reaching their homes.

I have already instanced the case of the entire disintegration of a regiment whose colonel I met at Farmville.

As a result of these and other influences, when Lee finally surrendered at Appomattox, there were only 28,356 officers and men left to be paroled, and many of these were without arms.

It was probably this latter fact which gave rise to the statement sometimes made, North and South, that Lee surrendered a smaller number of men than what the official figures show.