Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

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[689] prize of the Southside Railroad. In the night of the 29th, Gen. Lee, having perceived Grant's manoeuvre, despatched Pickett's and Bushrod Johnson's divisions, Wise's and Ransom's brigade, Huger's battalion of infantry, and Fitzhugh Lee's division, in all about seventeen thousand men, to encounter the turning column of the enemy.

The right of the Confederate entrenched line crossed Hatcher's Run at the Boydton plank road, and extended some distance along the White Oak road. Four miles beyond the termination of this line there was a point where several roads from the north and south converged on the White Oak road, forming what is known as the Five Forks. It was an isolated position, but one of great value, as it held the strategic key that opened up the whole region which Lee was now seeking to cover. In the evening of the 29th, Sheridan occupied Dinwiddie Court-house, six miles southwest of where the two co-operating corps of infantry lay on their arms and about eight miles south of Five Forks.

A heavy rain the next day prevented further operations; but on the 31st Sheridan pushed forward to Five Forks, where he encountered two divisions of infantry under Pickett and Johnson. In the afternoon of the day this Confederate force, which had been moved down by the White Oak road, made a determined charge upon the whole cavalry line of the enemy, forced it back, and drove it to a point within two miles of Dinwiddie Court-house.

On the morning of the 1st April, Sheridan, now reinforced by the Fifth Corps, commanded by Warren, advanced boldly again in the direction of Five Forks, having ascertained that the Confederates during the night had withdrawn all but a mask of force from his front. In the afternoon, Pickett and Johnson found themselves confined within their works at the Five Forks, and flanked by a part of the Fifth corps, which had moved down the White Oak road. The Confederate troops having got the idea that they were entrapped, and finding themselves pressed front, flank and rear, mostly threw down their arms. Five thousand men surrendered themselves as prisoners. The remnants of the divisions of Pickett and Johnson fled westward from Five Forks routed, demoralized, and past control; and Gen. Lee found that his right, wrenched violently from his centre, was turned almost without a battle, and that what he had counted as the bulk of his army was no longer of any use. It was the only occasion on which the Confederate commander ever exhibited anything like reproof in the field. He remarked that the next time the troops were to be taken into action, he would put himself at the head of them; and turning to one of his brigadiers, he ordered him, with singular emphasis and severity, to gather and put under guard “all the stragglers on the field,” making a plain reference to the conduct of his officers.

But even if the shameful misfortune of Five Forks had not befallen