Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 2

In fact, the history of the war after the 9th of April is nothing but an enumeration of successive surrenders. On the 14th of April, Johnston made his first overtures to Sherman; on the 21st, Cobb yielded Macon; on the 4th of May, Richard Taylor surrendered all the rebel forces east of the Mississippi. On the 11th of May, Jefferson Davis, disguised as a woman and in flight, was captured at Irwinsville, Georgia; and on the 26th of the same month, Kirby Smith surrendered his entire command west of the Mississippi river. On that day the last organized rebel force disappeared from the territory of the United States. Every man who had borne arms against the government was a prisoner. One hundred and seventy-four thousand two hundred and twenty-three rebel soldiers were paroled.

This speedy and absolute collapse of the revolt was one of the most remarkable incidents of the war. Not a gun was fired in anger after the surrender of Lee was known. Not a soldier held out; not a guerilla remained in arms. None retreated to a mountain fastness; none refused to give a parole, or even an oath of allegiance to the national authority. Great part of this acquiescence was doubtless due to the terms that had been accorded by Grant. Aware as he was of the exhausted condition of the rebels, that they could hope for no after-success, and yet might prolong the war indefinitely in the interior—holding out in detachments here and there all over the country, coming together again as fast as they