President of the Confederate States of America of additional wagons, ambulances, and carriages, also carrying some Confederate archives papers and the C.S.A. Treasury banknotes and remnants of gold/silver bullion. The last official Cabinet meetings of the Presidential Cabinet of the Confederate States took place at Charlotte, on April 24, and 26, then later on May 4; when President Davis left Washington, Georgia, the party consisted only of his aides and Postmaster General Reagan. Elements of the United States Cavalry / Union Army captured Davis and his companions at an encampment near Irwinville, Georgia on May 10, 1865. Jefferson Davis was imprisoned at Fort Monroe, by the Hampton
Confederate States of America enthusiastic in 1861–62, seem to have lost faith in the future of the Confederacy by 1864, and instead looked to protect their homes and communities. As Rable explains, "This contraction of civic vision was more than a crabbed libertarianism; it represented an increasingly widespread disillusionment with the Confederate experiment." The American Civil War broke out in April 1861 with a Confederate victory at the Battle of Fort Sumter in Charleston. In January, President James Buchanan had attempted to resupply the garrison with the steamship, "Star of the West", but Confederate artillery drove it away. In March, President Lincoln notified South