enemy's lines in his front, capturing thousands of prisoners and a large number of guns. Pushing forward, he met the corps of Ord, and making a junction with him, hemmed the enemy in Petersburg on that side of them, while Humphreys joined Wright on the left, and Gibbon's Corps captured the works south of Petersburg.

The battle now raged furiously along the entire line, the Confederates fighting with great desperation. But at this juncture, Sheridan charged down upon the enemy's flank and rear with such force as to drive them from their defences panic-striken. Large numbers of prisoners and guns fell into our hands.

While the battle was raging, President Lincoln and the President of the Confederacy were both awaiting the result of the contest within a few miles of each other. Lincoln was at Grant's headquarters before Petersburg, thoughtful and anxious. Davis was attending church in Richmond. "In the midst of the services, an orderly splashed with mud strode up the aisle and handed him a paper. Glancing at its contents, he saw that all was over, and a few hours afterwards, he had left behind him his Capital forever, and was fleeing towards Danville." That night the Confederate army withdrew from Richmond and Petersburg and commenced the retreat which ended in Lee's surrender.

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE SURRENDER.

The Last Act in the Drama.-The Historic Farm-House.-Events Succeeding the Battle of Five Forks.-Lee's Army Hemmed in.Engagement at Barnesville.—The Enemy Hopelessly Surrounded.— Extermination or Surrender.-Triumphant Entrance into Richmond.-Lincoln's Levee in the Confederate Capital.-The Last Act.-Palm Sunday Anniversary.-Universal Rejoicing.

HE last act in the great drama of the war took

THE

place without dramatic accessory. There was no startling tableau, with the chief actors grouped in effective attitudes, surrounded by their attendants. No spreading tree lent its romance to the occasion, as some artists have fondly supposed.

A plain farm house between the lines was selected by General Lee for the surrender, and the ceremony of that act was short and simple. The noble victor did not complete the humiliation of the brave vanquished by any triumphal display or blare of trumpets. In his magnanimity he even omitted the customary usage of allowing the victorious troops to pass through the enemy's lines and witness their surrender. The two great commanders met with courteous salutation. General Lee being attended only by one of his aides. General Grant sat down at a table in the barely furnished room and wrote in lead pencil the terms of capitulation to which Lee dictated an agreement in

writing. His secretary, Colonel Marshall, and Colonel Badeau, the secretary of General Grant, made copies of the agreement from the same bottle of ink.

"The exchange of these notes terminated the interview. It was singularly simple; utterly bald of all rhetorical flourishes and ceremonies; but its very simplicity gives it an interest and dignity that the most excessive formalities might fail to furnish.

*

*

* The manners of both commanders were easy, self-possessed, those of plain gentlemen in ordinary intercourse, and it is remarkable that no two men of important station could be found within the limits of America who so equally abhored the theatrical as General Ulysses S. Grant and General Robert E. Lee."

The final situation of the Confederate army before its surrender, was indeed desperate-its environment hopeless. Hemmed in at Appomattox Court House, on a strip of land between the Appomattox and James Rivers, the Union army nearly surrounded it on all sides. Sheridan was in front, Meade in the rear, and Ord south of the Court House. Lee had no alternative other than the wholesale slaughter of his reduced army or its surrender to Federal authority. He wisely chose the latter.

The decisive battle of Five Forks had put his army to rout and sent it in rapid retreat towards the junction of the Southside and Danville railroads at Burkesville. The Union troops pressed forward in pursuit, and it became a vital question which would reach the Junction first. Between Petersburg, their point of starting, and their destination at Burkesville the dis

tance was fifty-three miles. The roads were bad and the troops tired with two days fighting; but they pushed on with determination in this race which was destined to decide the fate of two armies.

On the fourth, Lee was at Amelia Court House, while Sheridan, pushing towards the Danville railroad struck it at Jettersville on the fifth, whither Meade with the Second and Sixth Corps followed him. Two divisions of the Ninth Corps, moving on the Cox Road, reached Wellesville, twenty-one miles from Burkesville, on the same day. "On the night of the fifth, the army lay in line of battle, stretched across three or four miles of country, and facing substantially northward. Custer's division of cavalry lay on the right flank, and McKenzie's on the left. The infantry line was formed with the Sixth Corps on the right, the Fifth in the center and the Second on the left. On the next day the Sixth Corps was transferred from the right to the left, and the whole army had, before noon, marched about five miles in the direction of Amelia Court House." At this point, learning that the enemy was moving in the direction of Farmville, the course of the Second and Fifth Corps was immediately changed to a northwesterly direction. At about four o'clock in the afternoon of April sixth, the Second and Sixth Corps engaged the enemy, putting him to rout and capturing many prisoners. Generals Ewell and Custis were among the number. On the seventh, the Second Corps encountered Lee at Barnesville sixteen miles west of Burkesville, where a sharp contest took place and Lee was again forced to retire. He retreated in the direction of Lynchburg but Hancock's,

column had marched from Winchester on the fourth and stood ready to meet the enemy at Lynchburg, should occasion require. The remnant of Lee's once proud army was now hopelessly environed. In a few days it had been reduced from a force of fifty thousand to one of twenty, through its large numbers of desertions and the losses inflicted in battle. It took no prophet to foretell now the fate of Lee's army. Everyone could see that its doom was sealed.

Meantime, on the night of that eventful Sunday when Davis left his church services to take refuge in flight, Petersburg and the boasted Capital of the Confederacy were both evacuated. At daybreak on Monday morning General Weitzel marched the Army of the James into the streets of Richmond, and "was greeted with hearty welcome from the mass of the people." The Mayor went out to meet him in order to surrender the city, but missed him on the road. The city had been fired and the principal part of Main street was in ruins. The bridges also were destroyed. One thousand prisoners were taken besides five thousand wounded lying in hospitals. With a kind of poetic justice, Libby Prison and Castle Thunder were immediately filled with Confederate prisoners of war.

Two days after Davis fled from Richmond, President Lincoln made a triumphal entry into the city and held a levee in the Confederate Presidential mansion. When Grant had reached Farmville, on the seventh, in his pursuit of Lee, he addressed him the following note :