Confederate States Army from other causes such as accidents, which would add several thousand to the death toll. The main Confederate armies, the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee and the remnants of the Army of Tennessee and various other units under General Joseph E. Johnston, surrendered to the U.S. on April 9, 1865 (officially April 12), and April 18, 1865 (officially April 26). Other Confederate forces surrendered between April 16, 1865 and June 28, 1865. By the end of the war, more than 100,000 Confederate soldiers had deserted, and some estimates put the number as high as one third
USS Azalea (1864) President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet retired into the Deep South in the hope of continuing the struggle. However, Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia on the 9th and General Joseph E. Johnston realized that his army, the only significant body of Confederate troops left in the field, could not prevail. On the 25th, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman informed Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren that he expected General Johnston to surrender the next day and asked the commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron to ". . . watch the east coast and send word round to the west