Fitzhugh Lee, General Lee

[383] his junction with Johnston foiled, and the use of the Danville Railroad taken away from him. Sheridan arrived at Jetersville — on the Danville Railroad, seven miles from Amelia Court House, where Lee was that morningon the afternoon of the 4th, with some eighteen thousand troops of all arms, and intrenched. Meade did not reach him until late in the afternoon of the 5th. The last of Lee's force, Ewell, it will be remembered, did not reach Amelia Court House until noon that day. Still, if Lee's supplies had been there as ordered, he might have moved against Sheridan at Jetersville very early on the 5th with his whole force except Ewell, over twenty thousand men, and defeated him and reached Burkeville, thirteen miles farther, before Ord, who arrived there late that night.

Had Lee once passed beyond Burkeville, the Danville road could have supplied his army, its trains transported them to Danville, and via Greensborough to Raleigh and Goldsborough, or wherever Johnston was, or Johnston's force could have been rapidly brought to the Army of Northern Virginia. “Not finding the supplies ordered to be placed at Amelia Court House,” says Lee, “nearly twenty-four hours were lost in endeavoring to collect in the country subsistence for men and horses. The delay was fatal, and could not be retrieved.” There is some mystery about these supplies. Lee ordered them to be sent there from Danville, for he has so stated; and General J. M. St. John, then commissary general, states that on April 1, 1865, there were five hundred thousand rations of bread and one million five hundred thousand rations of meat at Danville, and three hundred thousand rations of bread and meat in Richmond, and that he received no orders to send supplies to Amelia Court House either from Richmond or Danville; and Mr. Lewis Harvie, then the president of the Richmond and Danville Railroad, has testified that no orders were ever given to his officers to transport any rations to Amelia Court House. It has been stated that on that famous Sunday a train-load of supplies arrived at Amelia Court House from Danville, but the officer in charge was met there by an order to bring the train to Richmond, because the cars were needed for the transportation