By spring, 1865, the soldiers of the trans-Mississippi region were showing signs of the increasing defeatist feeling. A Union officer who scouted widely in the Rio Grande valley reported that “the demoralization of the rebel army in Texas is very extensive. In all the counties from San Antonio to Austin up to the mountains the rebel soldiers are coming home in large numbers, and in two or three places have notified the enrolling officer and provost-marshal that their services were no longer needed.”[122] But on the other hand, the Confederate government and General Kirby Smith were taking extreme measures to keep the field forces intact. In February, 1865, all non-fighting troop details were outlawed except where soldiers were needed to keep a few key manufacturies in operation, all white men from eighteen to forty-five were ordered to report for immediate military service, and all leaves were cancelled.[123] Kirby Smith implored Richmond to make available the $50,000,000 in back pay due his men.[124] All Confederate prisoners on parole in Texas were declared to be exchanged and were commanded to rejoin their units. Unauthorized absentees were promised pardons if they returned to their companies within twenty days.[125] Once more Federal invasion troops were moving up the Red River and down from Arkansas. Only by thus scraping the bottom of the barrel could Texas hope to keep the determined foe at bay. In late April, 1865, just as a number of scandals involving illegal seizures of privately owned cotton were coming to light, the word arrived in Texas that General Lee had surrendered in Virginia. General Kirby Smith and Governor Murrah quickly penned proclamations asking the soldiers and citizens of the trans-Mississippi region to continue the struggle. Murrah declared that “These unforeseen calamities imposed additional responsibilities on the State of Texas” because Southerners now looked “with eager eyes and anxious hearts to the people and armies of this Department, for rescue and deliverance. They will not—they must not look in vain. With God’s blessing, it may yet be the proud privilege of Texas, the youngest of the Confederate Sisters, to redeem the cause of the Confederacy from its present perils.”[126] But such inspiring words failed miserably to compensate for the common realization that the Confederacy had failed. It could now be seen that for many months past the Southwest had endured the war in a desperate hope that Lee would soon achieve complete victory. With this one great hope crushed, the entire department was too demoralized to continue the fight. Desertions in very large numbers followed. Oftentimes bands of ten and twenty men would leave their undersized regiments in a single night. In Galveston, only the timely calling out of faithful troops prevented the attempted desertion of four hundred soldiers.[127]