Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 2

[548] filled with wounded, their supplies were taken for the troops, and they were anxious for the end. The rebel soldiers, as they passed, declared that their cause was hopeless, and the women, stubborn to the last, who begged them to turn and face the Yankees once again, were laughed to scorn. The negroes everywhere were jubilant, grimacing and dancing with delight. ‘Where are the rebels?’ said Sheridan to a colored patriarch, leaning on a fence and doing uncouth homage with a tattered hat. ‘Siftina souf, sah; siftina souf,’ was the apt reply.¹

As the only hope of the rebel commander now must be to unite with Johnston, Grant was of course extremely anxious in regard to the movements of Sherman, and this night sent him a long dispatch from Sutherland. After reciting the great events before Petersburg, he proceeded to direct the operations in North Carolina so as to combine them with his own; for Sherman's army, though a hundred and fifty miles away, was now more than ever only a wing of Grant's command. The battle-field reached from Richmond to Raleigh and Goldsboro.

‘If Lee goes beyond Danville,’ said Grant, ‘you will have to take care of him with the force you have for a while. Should he do so, you will want to get on the railroad south of him, to hold it or destroy it, so that it will take him a long time to repair damages. Should Lee go to Lynchburg with his whole force, and I get Burksville, there will be no special use in your going any further into the interior of North Carolina. There is no contingency that I can see, except my failure to take Burksville, that will ’