As morning approached the combat was heavier. The rolling thunder of the heavy metal reverberated along the line, and its bursting blaze spread afar to light the doom of the army once so proud to meet the foe,—matchless Army of Northern Virginia!
General Grant had ordered assault for four o’clock, but it was near five before there was light enough for the men to see their way across the line and over the works. Our night-ride was beyond range of the enemy’s batteries. Crossing the Appomattox, we rode through the streets of Petersburg for General Lee’s head-quarters, some miles farther west. As no part of the command had reached the station when we passed, orders were left for the detachments to march as soon as they landed.
Before the first rays of morning we found general head-quarters. Some members of the staff were up and dressed, but the general was yet on his couch. When told of my presence, he called me to a seat at his bedside, and gave orders for our march to support the broken forces about Five Forks. He had no censure for any one, but mentioned the great numbers of the enemy and the superior repeating rifles of his cavalry. He was ill, suffering from the rheumatic ailment that he had been afflicted with for years, but keener trouble of mind made him in a measure superior to the shooting pains of his disease.
From the line gained by the Sixth Corps on the 25th it was a run of but two or three minutes across to the Confederate works.
At 4.45, General Wright advanced as the signal for general assault. General Lee was not through with his instructions for our march when a staff-officer came in and reported that the lines in front of his head-quarters were broken. Drawing his wrapper about him, he walked with me to the front door and saw, as far as the eye could cover the field, a line of skirmishers in quiet march towards us. It was hardly light enough to distinguish the blue from the gray.
General Wright drove in our picket line, and in desperate charges crowned the Confederate works. General Gibbon followed the move with his divisions of the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Corps, one of his brigades (Harris’s) carrying part of the Confederate works. The troops, weary of their all-night watch and early battle, halted to close their ranks and wait for the skirmish line to open up the field. General Lee appealed to have me interpose and stop the march, but not a man of my command was there, nor had we notice that any of them had reached the station at Petersburg.
All staff-officers mounted and rode to find the parts of Heth’s and Wilcox’s divisions that had been forced from their lines. The display of officers riding in many directions seemed to admonish the skirmishers to delay under cover of an intervening swale. The alarm reached General A. P. Hill, of the Third Corps, who rode off to find his troops, but instead came suddenly upon the enemy’s skirmishers in their concealment. He wheeled and made a dash to escape, but the Federal fire had deadly effect, the gallant general fell, and the Southern service lost a sword made bright by brave work upon many heavy fields.
General Humphreys, of the Second, followed the move of the Sixth Corps, and General Parke assaulted on the Bermuda Hundred front and at Petersburg. He had partial success at the former, but was repulsed when he met Mahone’s strong line. At Petersburg he had more success, capturing twelve guns.
General Sheridan, reinforced by Miles’s division, was ordered to follow up his work on the right bank. The reinforcements sent under Lieutenant-General Anderson joined General Pickett at night of the 1st, and the combined forces succeeded in getting out of the way of the Union infantry, and they gave the cavalry a severe trial a little before night at Amazon Creek, where the pursuit rested; but the Union forces made some important captures of artillery and prisoners. The divisions of Heth and Wilcox moved to the right and left to collect their broken files. General Wright wheeled to the right and massed the Sixth Corps for its march to Petersburg, and was joined by General Gibbon.
Not venturing to hope, I looked towards Petersburg and saw General Benning, with his Rock brigade, winding in rapid march around the near hill. He had but six hundred of his men. I asked for two hundred, and led them off to the canal on our right, which was a weak point, threatened by a small body of skirmishers, and ordered the balance of his troops deployed as skirmishers in front of the enemy’s main force.