[622] hundreds of thousands of brave men had fallen before that result could be achieved! And this is the glory of the Army of the Potomac, that it brought to the ground the adversary which had ever been the head and front of the revolt, and that in crushing it, it quelled the rebellion. For so decisive upon the issue of the war was the surrender of that army, that the capitulation of all the other Confederate armies followed as a corollary therefrom, and the structure of the Confederacy, losing its key-stone, fell with a resounding crash.
Three days after the surrender, the Confederates marched by divisions to a designated spot in the neighborhood of Appomattox Courthouse, and there the troops stacked their arms and deposited their accoutrements. Less than eight thousand presented themselves with muskets in their hands; but the capitulation included, in addition, about eighteen thousand unarmed. Paroles were then distributed to the men, and the Army of Northern Virginia passed out of existence.
The Union troops then retraced their steps to Richmond, whence they were soon afterwards transferred to Washington. Here uniting with their illustrious sister-army of the West, they passed in review before the President and his cabinet, and the representatives of foreign powers, and an immense concourse of citizens, who with great rejoicings welcomed home the men whose valor had won the peace that now reigned over all the land. When the pageant was ended, the troops were mustered out of service, and the men, doffing the Union blue, were quietly reabsorbed into the body of society.
Thus the Army of the Potomac—that mighty creation of the patriotism of a free people, which for four years had waged a struggle unparalleled in its continuous intensity— ceased to be, closing its career in the world and the world's wars by the happy re-establishment of the Union for which it had fought.
What it belonged to me to say of this army is now completed. It is worthy of, and will doubtless find, a better historian. Yet, inadequate as is the performance, I am conscious
