Free to Go Where We Liked: The Army of Northern Virginia after Appomattox

Relatively few works on the Army of Northern Virginia have looked closely at what happened to the army after the surrender on April 9, 1865. A closer examination of the immediate post-surrender period, however, suggests that many of Robert E. Lee's men did not experience surrender as a definitive conclusion to their experience as Confederate soldiers. Because of the generous surrender terms, they dispersed from Appomattox more like soldiers than vanquished rebels. But their journeys also revealed the degree to which a substantial portion of Confederate civilians continued to support them even in defeat and highlighted the ways in which Confederates might continue to fight the results of emancipation. The disbanding of Lee's army thus foreshadowed much of what would play out in the years to come as Confederate soldiers-turned-veterans continued to resist changes to the southern social and political order.