COLUMBIA was captured (February 17), and Charleston, thus threatened in the rear, was evacuated the next day.
[Footnote: The cotton stored in the city was scattered through the streets and destroyed by fire. The flames quickly spread to the houses adjoining. All efforts to subdue the conflagration were unsuccessful, and a large portion of the city was destroyed.]
[Footnote: General Hardee, on leaving, inflicted a terrible injury. He set fire to every shed and warehouse in which cotton was stored. The flames spread to a quantity of powder in the depot, which exploded with fearful destruction. Two hundred lives were lost. In spite of the efforts of the Union troops, a vast amount of private property was involved in the general devastation. The ravages which the war had made were well illustrated by the appearance of this city after its evacuation. An eye-witness says: "No pen, no pencil, no tongue can do justice to the scene; no imagination can conceive the utter wreck, the universal ruin, the stupendous desolation. Ruin, ruin, ruin, above and below, on the right hand and on the left-ruin, ruin, ruin, everywhere and always, staring at us from every paneless window, looking out at us from every shell-torn wall, glaring at us from every battered door, pillar, and veranda, crouching beneath our feet on every sidewalk. Not Pompeii, nor Herculaneum, nor Tadmor, nor the Nile, has ruins so saddening, so plaintively eloquent.">[
In this emergency, Johnston was again called to the command of the Confederate forces. He gathered their scattered armies and vigorously opposed Sherman's advance. After fierce engagements at Averysboro and Bentonville (March 15, 18), he was driven back, and Raleigh was captured (April 13).
SIEGE OF RICHMOND.—Lee's position was fast becoming desperate. His only hope lay in getting out of Richmond and joining with Johnston. Their united armies might prolong the struggle. Grant was determined to prevent this, and compel Lee to surrender, as he had forced Pemberton to do.
ATTACK ON FORT STEADMAN (March 25).—Lee determined to attack Grant's right, in order to hide his plan of retreat, and especially in the hope that Grant would send troops from the left to succor the threatened point. In that case, he would slip out, with the main body of his army, by the nearest road southward, which ran close by the Union left. The assault was made on Fort Steadman, but it was a signal failure. Three thousand out of five thousand engaged in the attempt were lost. To make matters worse, a Union assault followed directly afterward, and a portion of the Confederate outer defences was captured. Thus Grant's grip was only tightened. He had made no change in the position of his troops, and this sortie neither hastened nor delayed the grand, final attack.
BATTLE OF FIVE FORKS (April l).—This movement began Wednesday morning, March 29. Sheridan with his cavalry—nine thousand sabres—and heavy columns of infantry, pushed out from Grant's left wing to get around in Lee's rear. Cloaking his plan by a thick screen of cavalry, to conceal the movements of his infantry, he threw a heavy force behind the Confederate position at Five Forks. Assailed in front and rear, the garrison was overwhelmed, and five thousand men were taken prisoners.
[Footnote: Five Forks is situated twelve miles southwest from
Petersburg. (See map opposite p. 223, and of VIth Epoch.)]
The Effect of this brilliant affair was at once to render Lee's position untenable. His right was turned, and his rear threatened.
CAPTURE OF PETERSBURG AND RICHMOND (April 2, 3).—The next morning, at four o'clock, the Union army advanced in an overwhelming assault along the whole front. By noon, the Confederate line of intrenchments before which the Army of the Potomac had lain so long, was broken, and thousands of prisoners were captured.