The Last March of Lee's Army: South

As he rode slowly along the lines, hundreds of his devoted veterans pressed around the noble chief, trying to take his hand, touch his person, or even lay a hand upon his horse, thus exhibiting for him their great affection. The general then, with head bare and tears flowing freely down his manly cheeks, bade adieu to the army. In a few words he told the brave men who had been so true in arms to return to their homes and become worthy citizens.

Thus closed the career of the noble Army of Northern Virginia.

The surrender of Lee's army was followed, a few days afterwards, by that of General Johnston, and within a month all the armies of the Confederacy had laid down their arms and accepted the lenient terms proposed to General Lee. This leniency was soon in danger of being replaced by harsher measures. Two days after Lee's surrender an event occurred which stirred the North as no event of the war had done, an act of brutal violence, which, with a different people, might have led to deeds of bloody and terrible reprisal. This was the murder of President Lincoln, who was shot in a Washington theatre by a frantic partisan of the South, eager for that infamous glory which has led in all ages to acts of destructive violence. Thus, by the pistol of an assassin, fell the man whose hand had guided the ship of state through all the perils of its dangerous way, and whose wise and judicious counsel and unbounded influence would have been of incalculable value in healing the wounds of the war. In the act of its pretended avenger the South lost its best friend, and a long period of divided counsels and bitter feeling was the direct consequence of this fatal blow.