why did the confederates surrender?

Answer 1

Early in 1865, as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant tightened the siege around Gen. Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia in Richmond and Petersburg, Lee planned for the evacuation of his troops. He determined to march to North Carolina, consolidate his army with Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's, defeat Gen. William T. Sherman's army and then turns on Grant. When the Federals broke through his lines on April 2, Lee put his plan in motion. The wings of his army were to rendezvous at Amelia Court House, re-supply, and march to Danville along the Richmond and Danville Railroad.

The Army while worn was still in good spirits the men thought Marse Lee would pull out another miracle. The problems were much of the artillery was lost in White Oak Swamp and the Federal Artillery was too well protected to do proper battle. Little went as planned. High water made crossing the Appomattox River difficult, delaying the rendezvous and the anticipated supplies were not at Amelia Court House. Lee also lost his day's lead over the pursuing Grant while he waited, allowing Federal cavalry and infantry to block his path down the track at Jetersville. Deciding not to give battle, Lee turned west and began a series of three consecutive night marches. Grant's strategy - to press Lee from the rear while preventing him from turning south, get the cavalry in front of him, and then surround and compel him to fight or surrender - began to take effect.

Fighting by day and marching by night, Lee's exhausted and hungry men trudged toward Farmville, their next supply station. The column stretched for miles, slowed by a voluminous baggage train. At almost every watercourse, the men and wagons bogged down and Gen. Philip H. Sheridan's Union cavalry slammed into Lee's rear guard. On April 6, the Federals brought Lee to bay at Little Sailor's Creek, where in three separate engagements almost a quarter of the Confederate force was killed or captured. Lee, absorbing the magnitude of the disaster, remarked, "My God, has the army been dissolved?"

The survivors crossed High Bridge, the huge railroad trestle over the Appomattox River and the scene of intense combat earlier in the day, and made their way to Farmville. The next day, as they distributed rations from the trains at the depot, the gunfire of Federal cavalry was heard from the east. Lee also learned that Union infantrymen had successfully crossed the Appomattox River on a small wagon bridge below High Bridge and were threatening his line of march. He sent his troops across the river to dig in around Cumberland Church and fend off Union probes.

Beginning what would be their last night march on April 7, Lee's men headed for the next destination, Appomattox Station on the South Side Railroad, where supplies sent east from Lynchburg awaited them. Once replenished, the army would continue west to Campbell Court House near Lynchburg. But Union cavalry captured the station and the supplies and positioned itself between Lee and his next objective. With Federal infantry closing in behind him, Lee ordered a breakout attempt for dawn the next morning, April 9. Gen. John B. Gordon led the attack with a combined force of cavalry and infantry and fought his men to "a frazzle.” The cavalrymen cut through their Federal counterparts and escaped, but then large numbers of Union infantry arrived in support. Gordon reported to Lee that it was no use. Flags of truce broke out. The shooting died away. And that afternoon, in the little village of Appomattox Court House, the war in Virginia came to an end.

The Black soldiers who served in the
Confederate Army are the real forgotten men...
Private R.M. Doswell was hastening back to his unit after carrying an order when something attracted his attention. The young Virginian had just spotted one of the new Confederate companies of black soldiers, "a novel sight to me." the black Confederates were guarding a wagon train near Amelia Court House on the retreat from Richmond.
Doswell reined in about 100 yards to the rear of the wagon train and watched in fascination as a Union cavalry regiment formed up to charge. The black Confederates fired their weapons like veterans and drove back the overconfident Federals. The horse soldiers re-formed for another charge. This time they broke up the wagon train and scattered the defenders. The black soldiers were captured and disarmed. Doswell suddenly realized his own danger and rode away without being noticed. The date was April 4, 1865. Five days later, Lee would surrender his Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House.
The Couragous black soldiers who served in the various Northern armies have been much publicized and praised. Their brothers who fought for the South have been almost totally ignored. In actual fact, black Americans marched to war with the Southern armies from the very beginning in early 1861. In contrast, the Federal government refused to allow black men to serve in its ranks until well into the conflict. It was 1863 before the North began using black troops in any large number, and only then after considerable opposition.
Why did black men become soldiers of the south? It is often forgotten that while slavery was the major underlying cause of the Civil War, its abolition was not the original objective of the US government. In his inaugural address of March 4, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln stated that he had "no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." The attempts by overzealous generals such as John C. Fremont and David Hunter to free the slaves in the areas they occupied were promptly countermanded by Lincoln. The man in the White House had enough problems without pushing slave-owning Union loyalist in the critical border stares into the arms of secessionists.
Many Northern soldiers felt the same way, declaring that they would stop fighting if the war turned into a crusade for abolition. Before crossing the Ohio River in 1861 into what would become West Virginia, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan had issued a proclamation to reassure the inhabitants, "Not only will we abstain from such interference," he wrote, "but we will on the contrary with an iron hand crush any insurrection on their part." Even General Ulysses S. Grant had said that if he "thought this was was to abolish slavery, I would resign my commission, and offer my sword to the other side."
Faced with such an attitude from the hostile North, the black Southerners had little reason not to be loyal to their home section. The slaves had nothing to gain from a Northern victory, and free black men might actually stand to lose such rights and property as they already had.
The 1860 census counted 240,747 "free Negroes" in the slave states, 15,000 more than lived in the free states to the north. Almost half a century earlier, free black Southerners had fought under Andrew Jackson to help defeat British invaders at the Battle of New Orleans. Not surprisingly, many also volunteered to defend their homes against the new threat from the North. No accurate record has been kept of black units that served the South, since most of them were state militia and never mustered into the Confederate Army. However, contemporary newspapers mention black units as being present at Charleston, Mobile, Nashville, New Orleans, Bowling Green, Ky., and Lynchburg, Va. Not one of these militia units appears to have been actively engaged in combat, though many did perform service on the front lines. Quite often this was as laborers in the construction of fortifications, a task also performed by slaves.
While free black men may have been accepted into the Confederate Army, the question of allowing slaves to enlist was another matter. As early as July 11, 1861, W.S. Turner of Helena, Ark., had proposed to arm and equip a regiment of slaves from his area for the Confederate Army. The offer was not accepted. In fact, such proposals struck at the very basis of slavery. To admit that slaved could be turned into good soldiers was to recognize black equality. If that was the case, slavery was wrong. Nevertheless, thousands of slaves served in the Southern army as noncombatants such as cooks, teamsters and musicians, or as personal servants to white Southerners.
Many of the slaves did on occasion take up arms and become combatants. An Englishman serving with the South wrote that one "might as well endeavor to keep ducks from water as to attempt to hold in the cooks of our company, when firing or fighting is on hand." Despite ordering his black cook to remain in the rear during the First Battle of Manassas, the English Confederate found him on the firing line, rifle in hand, shouting "Go in, Massa! give it to 'm, boys! Now you've got 'm, and give 'em Hell!" The soldier wrote, "If the ***** is really so unhappy as Northernern orators proclaim, why do our servants go into battle with us? - how comes it that officers cannot keep them from the front?"
One of the fighting cooks was given his freedom as a reward for his bravery but still continued to follow his former owner. It should be noted, however, that in almost every instance where a slave served loyally with his soldier-master, there was longstanding close relationship between the two. Slave and master had often grown up together, and the emotional ties between the two were strong.
For the vast majority of slaves, the war over secession meant little. Quite sensibly, they were basically neutral. Even after the Emancipation Proclamation, most slaves did not automatically support the North. In 1866, a witness before the Congressional Committee on Reconstruction was asked what percentage of the Southern blacks sympathized with the North during the war. "None of them," he replied. "There has been this: a dispostion on their part to try something new...to be free; and when they came within reach of the Federal army a great many of them ran away to it. But there was no resistance to discipline and authority at home."
In fact, slaves serving with the Confederate Army showed little inclination to run away even when they were deep within Union territory. A British observer, Lt. Col. Arthur J. Fremantle of the Coldstream Guards, noted in his diary that he observed an armed black man leading a Union prisoner in Pennsylvania during the Gettysburg campaign. The man explained to Fremantle that the two soldiers assigned to guard the prisoner were drunk, so he had taken charge of the prisoner to keep him from escaping. "This little episode of a Southern slave leading a white Yankee through a Northern village, alone and of his own accord, would not have been gratifying to an abolitionists," wrote Fremantle. "Nor would the sympathizers both in England and in the North feel encouraged if they could hear the language of detestation and contempt with which numerous Negroes with the Southern armies speak of their liberators."
The issue of arming the slaves was one which the South would eventually have to face. It was all a matter of numbers. The population of the Northern states was several times that of the South, and about one-third of the total Southern population was black. As the war dragged on, the shortage of manpower became exceedingly evident. Sooner or later, the slaves would have to be turned into soldiers. However, to do so was to write the finish to slavery itself.
By the end of the third year of the war, Maj. Gen. Patrick R. Clebutne decided the time had come. Abraham Lincoln had already issued his Emancipation Proclamation, which ironically affected only the states who were not under his control. Lincoln had proclaimed freedom for all slaves in the territory still held by the Confederacy in an attempt to end their usefullness in the South. However, the slaves in areas under Union control remained slaves. It almost seemed hypocritical. Nevertheless, the Emancipation Proclamation was a powerful psychological weapon that made the North now appear tomany as the champion of human liberty. The slaves had been given reason to hope for Northern victory.
Irish-born Pat Cleburn proposed turning the tables on Lincoln: free the slaves and enlist them as Southern soldiers. "The necessity for more fighting men is upon us," Cleburne wrote on January 2, 1864. "We can only get a sufficiency by making the ***** share the danger and hardship of the war. If we arm him and train him and make him fight for his country, every consideration of principle and policy demands that we shall set him and his whole race, who side with us, free."
Cleburne believed that every rational man would place Southern independence ahead of the outdated system of slavery. However, governments are not always run by rational men. A copy of Cleburne's proposal was forwarded to Jefferson Davis. The Confederate president commented that although he recognized the "patriotic motives of its distinguished author, I deem it inexpedient at this time."
Major General Howell Cobb, a Georgia politician who owned over 1,000 slaves, was shocked by what Cleburne had suggested. "If slaves make good soldiers," said Cobb, "our whole theory of slavery is wrong." The Lincoln government had already decided that was indeed the case. In the summer of 1862, the U.S. Congress authorized the president to employ as many black noncombatants as he felt necessary. They still were not accepted by the North as soldiers, but within a year's time they would be.
The Union Army's black troops were formed into segregated units commanded by white officers. A number of these regiments distinguished themselves in combat, and black Union soldiers eventually would be present at over 400 battles and skirmishes before the war had ended. The black Federals, however, were discriminated against in other ways. Until late in the war, they received lower pay than white soldiers. Throughout the war they were regularly cheated of their enlistment bonuses by unscrupulous recruiting agents. Black soldiers faced an additional danger not shared by their white colleagues. If captured, they would not be considered prisoners of war, but sold back into slavery. On a few occasions, black captives were simply shot.
NOTE the above statement is not completely true (thanks to Captain Michael Kelley of the 34th Texas Cavalry for the following clarification:
Black Union soldiers _were_ taken as prisoner and are recorded as such in Southern prison camps. One was Corporal Henry Gooding of the 54th Massachusetts, whose letters to his hometown newspaper were later published as, "On the Altar of Freedom - the Collected Letters of Cpl Henry B. Gooding, 54th Massachusetts (Colored)"; he died as a POW at Andersonville in 1865. At Ft. Pillow, Gen. N.B. Forrest took away 37 Black Union soldiers as POWs.
Surprisingly, the Southern army accepted black soldiers as equals. By order of March 23, 1865, the black Confederates were to "receive the same ration, clothing, and compensation as allowed other troops in the same branch of service."
The enlistment of slaves into the Confederate Army began almost at once. Soon, black soldiers were drilling in the streets of Richmond, and the Confederate War Department was being deluged with requests for the authority to raise more. On March 21, 1865, the Richmond Sentinal reported that the battalion from Camps Winder and Jackson, including "the company of colored troops under Captain Grimes," would parade on the square. Three days later, the newspaper informed its readers that "the ***** brigade being raised by Majors Pegram and Turner, is being rapidly filled up."
The black companies were provided with new uniforms and marched through the city to encourage more to enlist. Black units were also recruited in the deep South, and a worried Ulysses S. Grant wrote to Maj. Gen. Edward R.S. Canby at Mobile to "get all the ***** men we can before the enemy puts them into their ranks." However, the Southern leaders had waited far too long. The war would be over before the black Confederates could have any effect on the outcome.
But what would have happened if Confederate authorities had acted sooner? Could the South have won, after all? Slavery was the main obstacle in gaining foreign recognition, especially after the Emancipation Proclamation had made the North appear to be fighting to bring freedom to the black man. Slavery's abolition by the Confederacy would have eliminated the moral issue and made the South acceptable to Europe. Christian Fleetwood, a black soldier who had served in the Union Army, realized this. "The immense addition to their fighting forces, quick recognition of Great Britian, to which slavery was the greatest bar, and the fact that the heart of the ***** was with the South but for slavery, and the case stands clear," he wrote. Confederate General John Bell Hood was equally positive. "This stroke of policy and additional source of strength would, in my opinion, have given us our independence." Yet slavery was one of the basic issues of the war. The Confederate political leaders could not bear to give it up until there was nothing else left to do.
After the war, the contributions of black soldiers to the Southern war effort were almost completely forgotten. In part, this was the result of the growing misconception that the Civil War had been fought solely to end slavery. The political and economic causes were virtually ignored, as was the question of the legality of secession. The memory of the martyred Abraham Lincoln left little place for the recognition of black men who had fought against his armies. However, one former slave who had been captured with his master spoke for them all. "I had as much right to fight for my native State as you had to fight for yours," he told a Union officer, "and a blame sight more right than your furriners, what's got no homes."
The Confederate veterans did not forget. In 1913, 50 years after the bloody Battle of Gettysburg, thousands of surviving members of the rival armies met once more at the little Pennsylvania town, this time in friendship. The commission in charge of housing had provided accommodations for the black Union veterans. However, they were completely surprised when black Confederates showed up as well. The unexpected black Southerners were given straw pallets in the main tent of the compound. White veterans from Tennessee soon learned of their old comrads' plight. The white Confederates led the black veterans to their own camp, assigned them one of their tents, and saw to their every need. In peace, as in war, all men were equal.
April 9, 1865 Appomattox Courthouse; Lee and Grant

April 26, 1865 Bennett Place; Johnson and Sherman

May 9, 1865 Thomas’ Legion; Waynesville, NC

May 10, 1865 Irwinville, Georgia; Jefferson Davis was captured

June 23, 1865 Fort Towson, Oklahoma; Stand Watie surrenders


No the war did not end on April the ninth 1865, that was nothing else then the Army of Northern Virginia being surrendered. Above are the surrender dates of several Confederate armies; Johnson Army of the Tennessee was the last large Army. President Davis who was on the run and considering an insurgent war was captured on 10 May 1865. (This would be the actually An odd fact was the last two Confederate Armies remaining in the field were both Indian troops and leaders Thomas Legions surrendered the Eastern forces on 9 May 1865 while the Western Army commanded by Stand Waite surrounded the Eastern forces on 23 June 1865. I hope you found this interesting if it is for school work demand they give extra credit for reporting on something they did not know!

God Bless You and Our Southern People.

Answer 2

The confederate army had thinned due to dissertion and casualties. After losing the confederate capital (Richmond, VA) and Sayler Creek they understood that the war was impossible to win.

Answer 3

I think General Robert E. Lee officially ended the war by surrenderin with his Army of northern virginia at Appomattox Court House in near Appomattox, Virginia (obviously)

Answer 4

They had very good Officers, Generals ,probably better than those from the Union, but there was no real political leadership.
Thus no real organization behind the Army to provide funds, coordinate, and take critical decisions.

Answer 5

the cause was hopeless, and the confederate treasury was bankrupt.

Answer 6

they were running out of troops and the Souths capital was invaded

Answer 7

well because they lost the war.

Answer 8

♀ they were out manned and supplied ♀

Answer 9

They were pus_y's

Answer 10

they lost