"Homeward Bound" by William Holberton is a great resource about this topic specifically. It deals exclusively with the demobilization of both Confederate and Union armies. I'll quote from it heavily in my response. I'm currently sitting on a plane in Seattle, typing this on my iPhone before I fly home to my family in Alaska, so please excuse any errors I make.

I used to be flared in this sub-Reddit for the U.S. Civil War, so hopefully that buys me some "thread credibility."

The disbanding of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia was all in all a peaceful process, considering how long the men fought for and how far away from home many of them were. While there were serious concerns about an insurrection after the surrender, R.E. Lee cut a strong figure to his men (as well as Lincoln's firm tone of reconciliation) that upon receiving his order to peacefully disband, Lee did just that.

I know it might sound strange, but after the men were paroled by Grant and the Union Army they simply melted away into the forest and surrounding roads, towns and hamlets in small groups or on their own, making their way up to 1,500-2,000 miles home. Those who had to trek through the south were particularly hampered because of the thorough job General William Tecumseh Sherman had done in destroying the railroads in his legendary campaign.

There were cases of small scale looting, but nothing so bad as the potential guerrilla warfare that many citizens feared might transpire after the official surrender of the Confederacy.

One observer noted of the paroled men, "As a rule they were tall, thin, spare men with long hair and a beard of a tawney red color. They were all clad in the uniform of Southern grey; nearly all were ragged and dirty..."

According to the terms of surrender, "each body of soldiers was allowed to hold rifles equal to one-seventh of their numerical strength for protection and hunting along the way home." There was talk of confiscating horses or mules from those who owned them, but once the idea of how to tend a farm in post-war life was brought up these men who were fortunate enough to own a beast of burden were allowed to keep them.

An Englishman Francis Lowley observed the surrender at Appomattox and wrote, "By the evening of the 12th paroles...were distributed, and the disbanded men began to scatter through the country. Hardly one of them had a farthing of money. Some of them had 1,500 to 2,000 miles to travel over a country of which the scanty railroads were utterly annihilated."

What's important to remember about these men is that this was the dedicated core of what was left of Lee's once mighty Army. At this point, desertions had ticked up after Grant pushed Lee out of Richmond, and had his Union soldiers nipping at Lee's flanks and heels, like a pack of bloodhounds, as they fought predominantly rear guard engagements until reaching Appomattox.

Point being is that this was one tough contingent of men who were used to fighting for their lives with scant, if any, supply lines. Now that these men were paroled and didn't have the pressure of fighting for their lives each day, it is easier to understand how these men were able to make their way back to their respective homes without having much else besides the clothes on their backs.

The experiences for travelers differed greatly, depending on rank and distance to home.

General Lee was given an armed escort for his journey, which wasn't very far since he travelled in Virginia. He was met cordially along the road by his former soldiers, many of them hooting and hollering the rebel yell one last time for their proud commander. It was reported one morning that Lee had an eventful breakfast of "hard tack, fried pork and black coffee," the latter of which being quite rare during the war, as the Union blockade forced many confederate soldiers to find substitutes to traditional coffee, generals and privates alike.

Yet the travels of some of the rank and file soldiers were much longer indeed. A sergeant from Texas, Valerius C. Giles, had been away for four years and five months. Slowly and "painfully" it took him three months to travel back to his home.

But to me this quote sums it up best: "A sad procession; some were halt and lame, and some with one arm or one eye. Yet these men, careworn and anxious-looking, and wounded as they may have been were on their way home, and nothing was going to prevent them, however long and circuitous, to that goal."

These men were alive. They'd seen their comrades die and their cause vanish. Yet they were still standing. The human spirit, not only in this conflict but in all conflicts around the world, is strong and those who are still breathing will find their way home after the last bullet has flown. And that's exactly what Lee's men did, no matter how long the journey.

Ahh...it feels so good to be posting in this sub-Reddit again.

This is my first lengthy comment on /r/AskHistorians, so I hope it fulfills the general criteria.

I wanted to address a specific point of your question which was "were most of Lee's men from Virginia?" Though Lee was the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, it turns out that not many brigades of Virginians were actually involved in the Confederate order of battle. Looking at a list of the Appomattox Campaign, you'd find that approximately 8 brigades of infantry were "Virginia" regiments. Usually an average full-strength infantry brigade could have about 2,500 troops, leading to simple math that suggests there might have been as many as 20,000 VA infantry.

But, the math here intuitively seems wrong -- as you might realize, most regiments (constituent parts of the brigade) were already below 50% strength by this late stage of the war. For example, the 34th VA Infantry Regiment mustered out with 466 troops and only surrendered 224 at Appomattox. Indeed, looking at the rest of the order of battle points to 32 different brigades of soldiers not from Virginia, spreading across the Confederacy from Maryland to Louisiana. The amount of Virginia infantry is a significant, but not all-encompassing, amount.

Interestingly, there were 6 brigades of cavalry from Virginia, yielding a much higher percentage of the Army of Northern Virginia's total cavalry force. By comparison, there were only 2 brigades from North Carolina (under Generals Barringer and Roberts) and a handful of other Southern troopers mixed into Gary's brigade from GA, SC, and VA.

It is worth noting that the order of battle also has a "Richmond Department" led by Ewell that was entirely made of men from VA.

Though this may not answer every element of your question, it begins to suggest that the overwhelming majority of troops were not, in fact, particularly close to their homes when Lee surrendered.

Source:

Quick Order of Battle from NPS

More Detailed Order of Battle gleaned from Official Records...

Useful refresher on the organization of Civil War Armies to help clear up some of the terms that I used

Hi there, folks!

This thread has started to garner a great deal of attention - which is fair enough, it's an interesting question! There's no doubt that demobilisation is a topic we often don't think about, and I'm looking forward to seeing an answer just as much as the rest of you.

Unfortunately, good answers take time to write. The overwhelming majority of highly upvoted answers (~98%) here on /r/AskHistorians receive a great quality answer, but often you'll have to wait several hours. After all, the people writing for us here are volunteers, with lives, taking time out of their days to share their knowledge with us. They're not at our beck and call, nor should they be.

So, as always, please be patient. We have very high standards here on /r/AskHistorians - that's what makes us so special. So please don't post speculation on what you think might have happened to the Army of Northern Virginia, or bother pointing out that stadium crowds can go home easily - most stadium crowds didn't just finish fighting a four year military campaign hundreds of kilometres from their home (although I've heard those Crimson Tide lot can be a rowdy bunch, so...). Demobilisation is a complicated, interesting process, and two sentences isn't going to cut it.

As always, thanks for your understanding!