Second Corps, Army of Northern Virginia General Gustavus W. Smith. This unit was also known as the Second Division and was eventually subsumed into general Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia as a reserve in Maj. Gen. D. H. Hill's Division. When Lee was able to reorganize his army after finishing battles with Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan on the peninsula, he created this corps under the command of Lieutenant General Jackson, along with a sister corps under Lt. Gen. James Longstreet. Lee's reorganization was based on his evaluation of the performance of his division commanders during the Seven Days Campaign. General Jackson commanded
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