article_snippet.sent: In April 1865, however, those portraying Union troops weren't as calm.
article_snippet.sent: Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's forces were in a state of growing disarray in the hours before Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee formally called it quits.
article_snippet.sent: , Virginia marked the beginning of the end of the American Civil War in 1865 .
article_snippet.sent: Ragged, hungry Southern soldiers, many straggling and on the run from federal forces, began giving up alone and in small bunches even before Lee's surrender in Appomattox.
article_snippet.sent: Days earlier that month, the Army of Northern Virginia had already smashed the Army of Northern Virginia way into the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.
article_snippet.sent: The last days accounts were cited as saying 'the road for miles was strewn with broken down wagons, caissons, and baggage of all kinds, presenting a scene seldom witnessed on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia.'