Page:Decisive Battles Since Waterloo.djvu/341

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
BATTLE OF FIVE FORKS AND LEE'S SURRENDER.
307

Grant and Lee. No great battle was fought after Lee's surrender, and of the few collisions that occurred before the wings of peace were outstretched over the whole country, there were none of consequence. The last battle of the war was fought in Texas, May 13th, resulting in a loss of about thirty killed and wounded on the Union side, some forty or fifty taken prisoners, and four or five wounded on the Confederate side.

The number of men paroled in the Confederate armies, at the close of the war, was 174,223, and at the same time 98,802 Confederate prisoners of war were held in Northern prisons or depots. The aggregate Union force on the muster rolls of the Union armies on March 1, 1865, was 965,591, and on the first of May the number exceeded 1,000,000. On that date all enlistments were suspended, and shortly afterwards the work of disbanding the army began. By the end of November more than 800,000 men had been mustered out of the service and returned to the occupations of civil life. The sudden termination of the war was unexpected by the great mass of the public on both sides, though to the thoughtful leaders, who knew the conditions against which they were contending, the result was apparent months and months before.