The wholesale discharge of Rebel prisoners of war — to whom was accorded transportation to their respective homes — was directed by an order from the Adjutant-General's office, dated May 6th. The number actually
This text is part of:
[758]
of Texas, when the good sense of the Rebel rank and file in that State saved her from a hopeless and damaging experience of the horrors of war. While the chiefs were still making preparations for a desperate resistance, their hitherto submissive followers bluntly refused to be thus foolishly sacrificed, and, dissolving their organizations, they helped themselves to whatever they could seize of the effects of the death-stricken Confederacy, and dispersed to their several homes; leaving their officers no choice but to make the best attainable terms.
Before Sheridan had started, therefore, certain of Smith's staff officers, headed by Lt.-Gen. S. B. Buckner, made their way down to Baton Rouge, and there concluded1 with Gen. Osterhaus, acting for Gen. Canby, a capitulation substantially identical with that accorded by Canby to Dick Taylor; the stipulation for “transportation and subsistence” inclusive.
This requirement involved the Government in very moderate expense.
The great body of the “soldiers of the trans-Mississippi Army” had already appropriated all the “subsistence and transportation” they could lay their hands on, and gone their several ways — profoundly convinced that rebellion, with overt war against the authority and integrity of the Union, was not a paying business, and determined to devote their time and talents henceforth to something more profitable.
Ere this surrender, the removal2 by Presidential proclamation of restrictions on commercial intercourse with the revolted States, the release3 on parole of all prisoners of war below the rank of Colonel who would take the oath of allegiance, and the mustering for review at Washington4 of the two main armies of the Republic, gave earnest of the virtual termination of hostilities; which was soon afterward formally announced in the following General Order:
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.