Fitzhugh Lee, General Lee

[377] a total of fifty thousand officers and men,¹ with a roving commission in front of Lee's extreme right, imperiled his communications most seriously, as well as the safety of his lines. The Southern general could not risk another attack outside of his works, and, in order to strengthen that portion of them sufficiently to resist assault, had so weakened what remained that it became vulnerable. From the Appomattox to the right center the thin gray line was so stretched that it was not as formidable as a well-prepared skirmish line. Though holding with tenacity to his right, Lee must let the bars down elsewhere. Thirty-five thousand muskets were guarding thirty-seven miles of intrenchments.

Grant on the night of April 1st was at Dabney's Mill, a mile or two south of Boydton plank road, which runs from Dinwiddie Court House to Petersburg. Colonel Horace Porter, his aid-de-camp, first gave him the news of Sheridan's success at 9 P. M. that night as he was sitting before “a blazing camp fire with his blue cavalry overcoat on and the ever-present cigar in his mouth.” He sent over the field-wires at once orders for an immediate assault along the lines, but subsequently directed the attack to be made at 4 A. M. the next day. All during the night a bombardment was kept up on all portions of the Confederate lines. At dawn on Sunday, April 2d, Parke and Wright, with the Ninth and Sixth Corps, and Ord, with the Army of the James, successfully assaulted the attenuated lines in their front. The task was easy, and while handfuls of brave men heroically resisted, like shooting stars their course was brilliant but brief. The storming pioneer parties everywhere cut away the abatis and chevaux-de-frise, and through the opening the blue masses poured into the works. There were high parapets and high relief and deep ditches; but the troops had been drawn away to the Southern right, and except here and there, notably at Fort Gregg, it was only a matter of physical agility to climb over them. Only small garrisons were in the forts, and very few men in the connecting lines.

Four small brigades, Wilcox's division, Hill's corpsviz.,