“There was nothing of the pomp or panoply of war about the headquarters, or the military government, or the bearing of General Lee.... Persons having business with his headquarters were treated like human beings, and courtesy, considerateness, and even deference were shown to the humblest. He had no gilded retinue, but a devoted band of simple scouts and couriers who, in their quietness and simplicity, modelled themselves after him.... The sight of him upon the roadside or in the trenches was as common as that of any subordinate in the army. When he approached or disappeared, it was with no blare of trumpets or clank of equipments.... He came as unostentatiously as if he had been the head of a plantation riding over his fields to enquire and give directions about ploughing or seeding. He appeared to have no mighty secrets concealed from his subordinates. He assumed no airs of superior authority.... His bearing was that of a friend having a common interest in a common venture with the person addressed, and as if he assumed that his subordinate was as deeply concerned as himself in its success. Whatever greatness was accorded to him was not of his own seeking.... But the impression which he made by his presence, and by his leadership, upon all that came in contact with him, can be described by no other term than that of grandeur.... The man who could so stamp his impress upon his nation ... and yet die without an enemy; the soldier who could make love for his person a substitute for pay and clothing and food, and could, by the constraint of that love, hold together a naked, starving band, and transform it into a fighting army; the heart which, after the failure of its great endeavour, could break in silence, and die without the utterance of one word of bitterness—such a man, such a soldier, such a heart, must have been great indeed—great beyond the power of eulogy.”
He had fifty thousand men to his opponents’ hundred and odd thousand. His men were very weary, very hungry, very worn. He had a thirty-mile line to keep, and behind him the capital of his government of which he was the sole defence. For months there had come upon his ears, resoundingly, the noise of disaster, disaster in every ward of the one-time grey fortress of the South. For all victories elsewhere his opponent fired salutes, thundering across the winter air into the grey lines, listened to grimly, answered defiantly by the grey trenches. The victories in Georgia—Winchester and Cedar Creek—Franklin and Nashville—Fort Fisher—Savannah—Columbia—Charleston—the blue salvoes and huzzahs came with frequency, with frequency! And ever thinner and thinner grew the grey ranks.
... There was but one last hope untried, and that was slight indeed, slight as gossamer. Break away from these lines, cover somehow and quickly a hundred and forty southward-stretching miles, unite with Johnston, strike Sherman, turn and combat with Grant! How slight was the hope Lee perhaps knew better than any man. But he had accepted a trust, and hand and head served his cause to the last.
... To strike aside Grant’s left wing, with a last deadly blow, and so pass out—
Fourteen thousand men, under Gordon, were given the attack upon Fort Stedman and the three forts on lifted ground beyond. On the twenty-fifth of March, at dawn, the assault was made—desperately made, and desperately repulsed. When the bitter day was over the blue had lost two thousand men, but the grey had lost twice as many.
A.P. Hill held the grey right from Hatcher’s Run to Battery Gregg. Gordon had the centre. Longstreet held from the Appomattox to the White Oak Road. Now on the twenty-ninth of March, Grant planned a general attack. Sheridan was here from the Valley, to come in on the grey rear with thirteen thousand horse. Every corps of the Army of the Potomac had its appointed place and task in a great movement to the right. Lee, divining, drew from his threadbare, extended lines what troops he might and placed them at Five Forks, confronting the Second and Fifth blue Corps,—Fitz Lee’s and W.H.F. Lee’s cavalry, say four thousand horse, Pickett’s division, thirty-five hundred muskets, Anderson with as many more. All the night of the twenty-ninth, troops were moving in a heavy rain.
Through the dripping day of the thirtieth sounded, now and again, a sullen firing. On the thirty-first the grey attacked—attacked with all their old elan and fury—and drove Sheridan back in disorder on Dinwiddie Court House. Night came down and made the battle cease. There dawned, grey and still, the first of April. All day there was fighting, but in the dim evening came the catastrophe. Like a great river that has broken its banks, the blue, advancing in force, overflowed Pickett’s division.... The grey loss at Five Forks was five thousand.
With the morning light Grant began his general advance upon Petersburg. The grey trenches fought him back, the grey trenches that were now no more than a picket line, the grey trenches with men five yards apart. They gave him pause—that was all that they could do. All the South was an iron bell that was swinging—swinging—
General Lee telegraphed Breckinridge, Secretary of War. “It is absolutely necessary that we abandon our position to-night or run the risk of being cut off in the morning. I have given all the orders to officers on both sides of the river, and have taken every precaution I can to make the movement successful. Please give all orders that you find necessary in and about Richmond. The troops will all be directed to Amelia Court House.”
This day was killed A.P. Hill.