MAY 26, 1865:
Having taken the measure of Confederate
will in Texas, General Edmund Kirby Smith travels to Galveston, where he meets
with Union officials to announce a cease-fire in the Department of The
Trans-Mississippi.
Following
the announcement of the cease-fire, Smith engages Union representatives in
nearly a week of byzantine negotiations before surrendering his Department.
Smith
is later castigated by most Americans, North and South, for entering into the
negotiations in bad faith, for Edmund Kirby Smith and his followers have no
intention of surrendering to the Union. The cease-fire turns out to be a
delaying tactic while Smith awaits a response from Emperor Maximilian I of
Mexico, whom he has contacted with an offer to bring his troops south of the
Rio Grande in order to fight the insurgent Juarezistas
in exchange for political asylum. Even as Smith haggles over minutiae in
the surrender terms (ultimately he accepts the Appomattox terms with slight
local changes) he is readying his forces to move south into Mexico.
After
41 days in the saddle riding south from Washington, Georgia, where he parted
from Jefferson Davis, John C. Breckinridge reaches the head of the Indian River
in Florida.
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