Booth's Escape Route

[JMadonna]

Rob,
Wars, especially civil wars, rarely end with a battle, a surrender or a peace treaty. Davis continued to believe, after Appomattox, that he could make a new start west of the Mississippi. The fact that Lee had surrendered what was left of the Army of Northern Virginia was not conclusive to Davis, nor to many other Southerners; Johnston’s army, Mosby’s Rangers and Kirby Smith’s army in the Trans-Mississippi were still in the field. All told, about 175,000 Confederate soldiers had still not surrendered.

The evidence is clear that Davis would continue the fight through guerrilla warfare. The weight of the evidence makes the Come Retribution thesis far more likely than making the case that the Confederate Hierarchy were innocent bystanders. Smoking gun evidence is never written down by government officials. This is why I find the case made for the Dalhgren letters highly suspect.