he can he certain to keep the secret. He will he the roost anxious man in the country to hear the news from us, his heart is so wrapped up in our success, hut I think we can send him some good news in a day or two.” I never knew the general to he more sanguine of victory than in starting out on this campaign.
When we reached the end of the railroad we mounted our horses, which had heen carried on the same train, started down the Vaughan road, and went into camp for the night in a field just south of that road, close to Gravelly Eun. . . .
While standing in front of the general’s tent on the morning of the 30th, discussing the situation with several others on the staff, I saw General Sheridan turning in from the Vaughan road with a staff-officer and an escort of about a dozen cavalrymen, and coming toward our headquarters camp. He was riding his white pacer, a horse which had been captured from General Breckinridge’s adjutant-general at Missionary Bidge. But, instead of striking a pacing gait now, it was at every step driving its legs knee-deep into the quicksand with the regularity of a pile-driver. As soon as Sheridan dismounted, he was asked with much eagerness about the situation on the extreme left. He took a decidedly cheerful view of matters, and entered
upon a very animated discussion of the coming movements. . . .
After his twenty-minutes’ talk with Grant, Sheridan mounted his horse, and, waving us a good-by with his hand, rode off to Dinwiddie. The next morning, the 31st, he reported that the enemy had been hard at work intrenching at Five Forks and to a point about a mile west of there. Lee had been as prompt as Grant to recognize that Five Forks was a strategic point of great importance, and, to protect his right, had sent Pickett there with a large force of infantry and nearly all the cavalry. The rain continued during the night of the 30th, and on the morning of the 31st the weather was cloudy and dismal.
General Grant had expected that Warren would be attacked that morning, and had warned him to be on the alert. Warren advanced his corps to ascertain with what force the enemy held the White Oak road and to try to drive him from it; but before he had gone far he met with a vigorous assault. When news came of the attack General Grant directed me to go to the spot and look to the situation of affairs there. I found Ayres’s division had been driven in, and both he and Crawford were falling back upon Griffin. Miles, of Humphreys’s corps, was sent to reinforce Warren, and by noon the enemy was checked. As soon as General Grant was advised of the situation, he directed General Meade to take the offensive vigorously. . . .
I found Sheridan a little north of Dinwiddie Court House, and gave him an account of matters on the left of the Army of the Potomac. He said he had had one of the liveliest days in his experience, fighting infantry and cavalry with cavalry only, but that he was concentrating his command on the high ground just north of Dinwiddie, and would hold that position at all hazards. . . .
This proved to be one of the busiest nights of the whole campaign. Generals were writing despatches and telegraphing from dark till daylight. Staff-officers were rushing from one headquarters to another, wading through swamps, penetrating forests, and galloping over corduroy roads engaged in carrying instructions, getting information, and making extraordinary efforts to hurry up the movement of the troops.
The next morning, April 1st, General Grant said tome: “I wish you would spend the day
FIVE FORKS AND THE FALL OF PETERSBURG.
BY HORACE PORTER, BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL, IL S. A.
A member of General Grant’s staff.
objects he wished to accomplish, and what each corps of the army was expected to do in different emergencies, so that these officers, when sent to distant points of the line, might have a full comprehension of the general’s intentions, and so that, when communication with him was impossible or difficult, they might be able to instruct the subordinate commanders intelligently as to the intentions of the general-in-chief.
For a month or more General Grant’s chief apprehension had been that the enemy might suddenly pull out from his intrenchments and fall back into the interior, where he might unite with General Joe Johnston against Sherman and force our army to follow Lee to a great distance from its base. General Grant had been sleeping with one eye open and one foot out of bed for many weeks, in the fear that Lee would thus give him the slip.
. . . Referring to Mr. Lincoln, he said: “ The President is one of the few visitors I have had who has not attempted to extract from me a knowledge of my plans. He not only never asked them, but says it is better he should not know them, and then
IT was 9 o’clock in the morning of the 29th of March, 1865. General Grant and the officers of his staff had bidden good-by to President Lincoln and mounted the passenger car of tha special train that was to carry them from City Point to the front, and the signal was given to start; the train moved off—Grant’slastcampaignhadbegun. Since 3 o’clock that morning the columns had been in motion and the Union army and the Army of Northern Virginia were soon locked in a death-grapple. The President remained at City Point, where he could be promptly informed of the progress of the movement. . . . The general sat down near the end of the car, drew from his pocket the flint and slow-match that he always carried, which, unlike a match, never missed fire in a gale of wind, and was soon wreathed in the smoke of the inevitable cigar. I took a seat near him with several other officers of the staff, and he at once began to talk over his plans in detail. They had been discussed in general terms before starting out from City Point. It was his custom, when commencing a movement in the field, to have his staff-officers understand fully the
date fixed for tlie movement to tlie new position, but on the morning of tlie 6tli news of tlie fall of Richmond and the retreat of Lee toward North Carolina was received at Sherman’s headquarters. Instead of marching to the Roanoke, Sherman moved toward Johnston’s bivouac at Smithfield, a point midway between Goldsboro’ and Raleigh. Reaching Smithfield on the 12th, Sherman found Johnston in retreat toward Raleigh. The next day a courier rode through Sherman’s camps shouting “Grant has captured Lee’s army!” Sherman at once ordered his troops in motion to cut off Johnston’s retreat southward, but before the movement commenced Johnston asked for a cessation of hostilities with a view of surrender. While on the way to meet Johnston, Sherman received a despatch announcing the assassination of the President. A conditional treaty was signed by Sherman and Johnston on the 18th, but was disapproved by the new executive, Vice-President Johnson, and on the 21st Grant ordered hostilities resumed against Johnston’s command. Further negotiations under a flag of truce resulted in the surrender of Johnston’s army on the 26th, upon the same terms Lee received from Grant (see p. 315). After the surrender Sherman’s army marched to Washington by way of Richmond, Spotsylvania, Fredericksburg, and Manassas.
SHERIDAN AND HIS GENERALS RECONNOITERING AT FIVE FORKS.
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