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

[585] therefore extended his own command to envelop the enemy's left, and made an advance with Miles's division, but was repulsed with considerable loss. Barlow, however, soon came up, but it was dark before he could take position, and no further attack was made by the Second corps.

The firing Humphreys had heard was from a battle of the cavalry. Crook had found great difficulty in fording the river, and when he attacked the enemy's trains on the northern bank, he encountered a large infantry force. A sharp fight ensued, in which Gregg was captured and the head of Crook's division was repelled.

Thus, two separate attacks had on this day been successfully resisted by the retreating but gallant forces of Lee. Both these affairs, it is true, were temporary defences, made to allow the artillery and ammunition trains to be withdrawn, but they demonstrated the lingering quality of the troops, which, though driven and crowded so far and so fast, could still be induced to turn and hold off for an hour or more their triumphant and advancing enemy.

Nevertheless, the converging and crossing columns of Grant were on every road, and the toils were drawn constantly closer around the fugitive army. At night the rebels had been chased for miles along the banks of the Appomattox, and forced to cross the river in such haste that they could only partially burn their bridges, and left eighteen cannon behind. The army of the Potomac had pursued with tremendous vigor, the infantry crossing at one bridge which had already been fired, and building another, and the cavalry wading; the vanguard of both Humphreys and Crook had come