Colonel Theodore Lyman, With Grant and Meade from the Wilderness to Appomattox, chapter 9, page 304

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Lee's position was untenable; Richmond and Petersburg were abandoned that night. Retreat was still open toward the westward. Accordingly, Lee withdrew along the line of the Richmond and Danville railroad, hoping to join Johnston, who was opposing Sherman's advance from the south. As a last resort, Lee planned to retreat to the mountains of Virginia, where he thought he might continue the war indefinitely. The Union Army followed close on the heels of the retreating southerners. The chase was continued for eighty miles. In the neighborhood of Appomattox Court House, the cavalry under Sheridan got across the railroad in front of the enemy. Lee was unable to break through. Hemmed in, with his men worn out and starved, Lee surrendered the remnant of his army, less than 27,000 men,¹ on April 9. This virtually ended the war.]

Headquarters Army of Potomac March 2, 1865

It was raw yesterday, or chilly rather, without being cold, and to-day we are favored by a persistent northeast rain, such as we had a month later than this at Culpeper. The season, I should fancy, is earlier here than at Culpeper — very likely by two weeks or more. Indeed last night the toads were whistling in the bog-holes, as they do with us in the last of April; and Rosie had, on his mantel, a bud of narcissus, or some such flower, he had found in a swamp. You would not give us much credit for a chance to move, could you see the country; the ground everywhere saturated and rotten, and giving precarious tenure even to single horses, or waggons. I did not believe very earnestly that we should soon move, when I left, but only wanted to be within all chances. I do really doubt whether anything

1 Livermore, 137.

Atlantic Monthly. Press. 1922.

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Colonel Theodore Lyman, With Grant and Meade from the Wilderness to Appomattox
George R. Agassiz, Ed.

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Colonel Theodore Lyman, With Grant and Meade from the Wilderness to Appomattox George R. Agassiz, Ed.

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Colonel Theodore Lyman, With Grant and Meade from the Wilderness to Appomattox
George R. Agassiz, Ed.