Few events in Civil War history have generated such deliberate myth-making as the retreat that ended at Appomattox. William Marvel shows that during the final week of the war in Virginia, Lee's troops were more numerous yet far less faithful to their cause than has been suggested: Lee himself made mistakes in this campaign, and defeat wrung from him an unusual display of fault-finding. Finally, Marvel proves accounts of the congenial intermingling of the armies at Appomattox to be shamelessly overblown and the renowned exchange of salutes to be apocryphal.