In mid-April 1865, after news of the collapse of the Confederate armies east of the Mississippi River reached Arkansas, Confederate Gen. M. Jeff Thompson established the headquarters of the Northern Sub-District of Arkansas at Harrisburg. Thompson and Union Gen. G. M. Dodge then negotiated surrender terms, with Dodge offering the same terms U.S. Grant gave to Robert E. Lee in Virginia. On May 11, 1865, Thompson surrendered his troops in northeast Arkansas, and 7,454 of his men were paroled at Wittsburg and Jacksonport, saying "all they wanted was to be allowed to live at home."