To this gallant young
Georgia officer, just turned thirty-three at the time,
Lee entrusted the last desperate effort to break through the tightening Federal lines, March 25, 1865.
Lee was confronted by the dilemma of either being starved out of
Petersburg and
Richmond, or of getting out himself and uniting his army to that of
Johnston in
North Carolina, to crush
Sherman before
Grant could reach him.
Gordon was to begin this latter, almost impossible, task by an attack on
Fort Stedman, which the
Confederates believed to be the weakest point in the
Federal fortifications.
The position had been captured from them in the beginning, and they knew that the nature of the ground and its nearness to their own lines had made it difficult to strengthen it very much.
It was planned to surprise the
Fort before daylight.
Below are seen the rabbit-like burrows of
Gracie's Salient, past which
Gordon led his famished men. When the order came to go forward, they did not flinch, but hurled themselves bravely against fortifications far stronger than their own. Three columns of a hundred picked men each moved down the slope shown on the left and advanced in the darkness against
Stedman.
They were to be followed by a division.
Through the gap which the storming parties were expected to open in the
Federal lines,
Gordon's columns would rush in both directions and a cavalry force was to sweep on and destroy the pontoon bridges across the
Appomattox and to raid
City Point, breaking up the
Federal base.
It was no light task, for although
Fort Stedman itself was weak, it was flanked by Battery No. 10 on the right and by Battery No. 11 on the left.
An attacking party on the right would be exposed to an enfilading fire in crossing the plain; while on the left the approach was difficult because of ravines, one of which the Confederate engineers had turned into a pond by damming a creek.
All night long
General Gordon's wife, with the brave women of
Petersburg, sat up tearing strips of white cloth, to be tied on the arms of the men in the storming parties so that they could tell friend from foe in the darkness and confusion of the assault.
Before the sleep-dazed Federals could offer effective resistance,
Gordon's men had possession of the
Fort and the batteries.
Only after one of the severest engagements of the siege were the
Confederates driven back.
