On our side we were busy strengthening our picket pits, hurrying to get the work finished before the rise of the moon. During the latter part of the night there was more or less picket-firing along the lines, which we kept up until daylight, when they also opened on us with several pieces of artillery in a redoubt close by. One of their shells struck a large pine tree near which Captain Moore was standing, and exploding, threw a large piece of wood against him, injuring him painfully.
Long before daylight on the 2d began the terrible cannonade which preceded the attack of the 6th and 9th corps on the rebel works near Petersburg. This was miles away on our right, but the sound of the cannon and the reverberation through the woods, together with our anxiety as to how the battle would end, put us on an awful strain. In a few hours, however, we learned that our troops had been victorious and had broken and held the rebel lines in several places, and also that Gen. A. P. Hill, one of Lee's corps commanders, had been killed. On our part of the line we captured about one hundred of the enemy, also the cannon in the redoubt in our front.
About 8 o'clock our corps took up the line of march via the Boydton plank road, to near Petersburg. Here we formed line, about noon, parallel with the Appomattox river, the right of our line joining the left of the 6th corps. Here we were considerably annoyed by a battery of the enemy on the opposite side of the river, until some of our sharpshooters drove the cannoneers away from their guns.
Later in the day we took up a new line near a large brick house which the day before had been the rebel General Mahone's headquarters.
A little before dark the enemy from one of their forts opened on us with artillery, but did little damage, as we were sheltered by the brow of a hill and most of their shots passed over us. An officer of our division, while standing by a pump near the brick house mentioned above, was killed by a cannon ball which passed through the pump. Several men of the 57th who had gone to a spring in rear of our line for water were also injured by fragments of shell.
The enemy evacuated Petersburg and Richmond during the night of the 2d and morning of the 3d. Lee's army moved westward with the expectation of reaching Lynchburg or Danville, Va.
Our corps took up the line of march in pursuit of the enemy about 8 o'clock a. m. on the 3d. We marched about twenty miles this day without any fighting, although some of our infantry and cavalry had some brisk skirmishes with the enemy's rear guard.
On the 4th we only marched about eight miles, but spent most of the day in repairing bridges the enemy had destroyed and mending the roads, which recent rains had put in very bad order. Our corps and the 6th were on what was known as the River road; the 5th corps and the main body of the cavalry were on a road further south, and Ord's army and the 9th corps were following the line of the South Side railroad.
By the evening of the 5th nearly all of Lee's army was at Amelia Court House. Lee had expected to find rations here for his army, which were ordered to be left there on the 2d. But the authorities at Richmond, anxious to get away, ordered the trains to go through to that place, where the rations were dumped out, the cars loaded with the heads of the various departments and their archives, and started south again, the occupants being in great dread of capture by the Yankees. The consequence was that Lee's army had to go hungry, as but little to eat was to be found in the country through which they were marching.
The 5th corps had reached Jetersville—a station on the South Side railroad—late in the afternoon of the 5th and began to entrench as they were in front and across the path of the rebel army, only five miles distant. Our corps joined the 5th corps about dark and the 6th corps a few hours later.