"Tell General Griffin to charge and keep charging."
Griffin's order to his troops was so quickly given that it seemed an echo of the order Tom brought him. It was the boy's business to return forthwith and report upon his mission, but he simply couldn't do it. There were the Confederate lines manned with hungry soldiers in the remnants of their gray uniforms, the Stars-and-Bars flying above them. And there were battalions of blue-clad cavalry, men and horses in prime condition, straining to start like hounds upon a leash. Griffin's order was the electric spark that fired the battery. The men shouted with joy as they spurred their horses into a mad gallop. The shout was answered by the shrill "rebel yell" from the dauntless foe in the trenches. The charging column shook the ground. In its foremost files rode Second-lieutenant Tom Strong, forgetful of everything else in the world but the joy of battle. Musketry and artillery tore bloody lanes in the close-packed column. Men and horses fell in heaps upon the blood-stained ground. But the column went on. At dusk of that April day it poured over the parapets so bravely held. Even then the fight was not over. There was still stout resistance. The two armies were a mass of struggling men, shooting, stabbing, striking. The battle had become a series of duels man to man. Tom, pistol in hand, rode at a big Kentuckian, but the gray-clad giant dodged the bullet, caught his own unloaded musket by the muzzle, and dealt the boy a blow with its butt that knocked him off his horse and left him senseless on the ground.
A few minutes later, when he came to his senses, he felt as if he were a boy annexed to a shoulder twice as big as all the rest of his body. It was on his shoulder that the blow of the clubbed musket had gone home. The fall from his horse had stunned him. Bob was standing over him, as Black Auster stood over Herminius, nuzzling at the outstretched hand of this silent, motionless thing that had been his master. They had been together for less than a week, but a day is often long enough for a horse to find out that his master is his friend. Tom had been more careful of his horse's comfort than of his own. Now the good gray had stood by him and over him, perhaps saving him from being trampled to death in that fierce last act of the Drama of Five Forks. Bob whinnied with joy as Tom's eyes slowly opened again. He thrust his muzzle down along the boy's cheek and the boy caught hold of the flowing mane with his right hand and pulled himself upon his feet again. His left arm hung useless by his side. One glance told him the battle was won. The duels were over. The Confederates were in full retreat. A stream of prisoners was already flowing by him. He mounted and followed it to Sheridan's headquarters. There the skillful fingers of a surgeon found that no bones were broken. The swollen shoulder was dressed and bandaged. The healthy blood that filled Tom's veins did much to make a speedy cure. So did the joy of victory. Sheridan had done what Grant had given him to do. He had driven back Lee's right flank and cut the railroad by which Lee must escape from Richmond, if escape he could.
Richmond was doomed. The next morning, Sunday, April 2, 1865, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, sat in his pew in St. Paul's Church, Richmond. The solemn service began. Soon there was a stir at the door, a rustle, a turning of heads away from the chancel, where the gray-haired rector stood. Swiftly a messenger came up the aisle. Davis rose from his knees to receive the message. The service stopped. Every eye was bent upon the leader of the Lost Cause. He put on his spectacles, opened the missive, and read it amid a breathless silence. It told him that the Cause was lost indeed. It was from Lee, who wrote: "My lines are broken in three places. Richmond must be evacuated this evening." There was no sign of feeling upon Jefferson Davis's impassive face, as he read the fateful dispatch. Without a word, without a sign, he left the church with the wife whose utter devotion had helped him bear the burden of those terrible years, during which proud hope gradually gave way to sickening fear. Davis was not of those weak men who despair. There was still a little hope in his heart, despite the tremendous blow Lee's letter had dealt him. He walked down the aisle with head as high as though he were marching to assured victory. But through the congregation there ran the whisper "Richmond is to be evacuated." A panic-stricken mob poured out of the church with faltering steps behind Jefferson Davis's firm, proud ones. Early that afternoon the Confederate Government fled. Early the next morning, Monday, April 3, 1865, Gen. Godfrey Weitzel marched his negro troops into the Confederate capital. The flag of the free floated from the dome of the Statehouse, which almost from the earliest days of the war had sheltered what was now indeed the Lost Cause. It was raised there by Lieut. Johnston L. De Peyster, a youth of eighteen, who had carried it wrapped around the pommel of his saddle for some days, hoping for the chance that now came to him. The second Union flag that was raised that day in Richmond was over Libby. The prison gates gave up their prey. The prisoners poured out, some too weak to do more than smile, others in a frenzy of joy. Major Hans Rolf, reduced by hunger to a long lath of a man, had lost none of his spirit.
"Now, boys," he shouted, "three times three for the old flag!"
The cheers rang out in a feeble chorus and then there rang out Han's contagious laughter.
"Ha! ha!" he roared. "We're free, boys, we're free."
By that Sunday night, the fate of Petersburg was sealed. Grant had ordered an assault in force at six o'clock Monday morning, but the Confederates abandoned their works in the gray dawn and our troops met little resistance in taking over the town. "General Meade and I," says General Grant in his "Personal Memoirs," "entered Petersburg on the morning of the third and took a position under cover of a house which protected us from the enemy's musketry which was flying thick and fast there. As we would occasionally look around the corner, we could see ... the Appomattox bottom ... packed with the Confederate army.... I had not the heart to turn the artillery upon such a mass of defeated and fleeing men and I hoped to capture them soon."
"Let us follow up Lee," Meade suggested. He was a better follower than a fighter. He had followed Lee before, from Gettysburg to Richmond, without ever attacking him.
"On the contrary," Grant replied, "we will cut off his retreat by occupying the Danville railroad and capture him. He must get to his food to keep his troops alive. We will get between him and his food."