were apparently determined to recover the ground they had lost, but whose object was to get as safely and soon as possible from Petersburg. General Potter was mortally wounded. Here was a closely contested position; but with the loss of one fort the enemy was beaten back. "Before noon, in plain view and easy range of the third interior line of Lee, we were moving in column, as if on a galaday parade; and so in truth it was; the Army of the Union in joyful attendance on the funeral of the rebellion.

At this hour not a sound came from the field, not a gun was speaking anywhere, not a shout heard on all the line. The rebel lines were as hushed as our own. Their guns looked down frowningly upon us from the huge forts in which they were encased; but not one of them spoke ; not a horse neighed, not a drum or bugle sounded. Not one of the ammunition-wagons moving hither over the sandy soil of the undulating landscape gave forth a sound. The whole field was stilled as if in death. Suddenly one of the guns upon the fort, on the rebel left, belched forth a dull report. A wreath of rising smoke, the bursting of a shell, and all was still again. The next moment another, then another, then three guns opened in a continuous roar. They were attempting to retard the march of three of our brigades gaining the shelter of a small skirt of timber upon their left, from which to assault them. Vain hope! The columns move on, paying them not even the compliment of a moment's pause, or of a gun in reply. Poor Lee! struggling like a child in the hand of a giant determined to destroy him.

It soon became evident that Lee was retreating across the Appomattox. Our sentinels from their signal-towers saw the up-springing flame in the city fired by rebel hands, and the departing columns darkening the pontoon bridges above the city. In anticipation of this, to cut off the rebel chief's retreat, the Second and Fifth Corps had been sent to the Appomattox.

At two o'clock in the afternoon, the bugles again sounded the storming of the remaining forts. Within two hours General Meade had a highway cleared to the city. On the right, the fort taken from us was again captured by

RETREAT OF GENERAL LEE.

539

General Collis's brigade. Before four o'clock, the fortunes of the day were decided. After all his unwearied watch. fulness, General Lee had been suddenly overwhelmed; his fifteen well-mounted forts were gone, and all the evidences of an unexpectedly hasty farewell to Petersburg were left in the wake of his retreating columns. Generals Grant and Meade took up head-quarters three miles west of the city, which was now a worthless relic of a long siege. Then followed the terrible explosion of the rebel rams Virginia and Rappahannock, shaking the ground for miles around like the wave of an earthquake, signaling the last deeds of self-destruction. General Ord, when called to Petersburg, left, on the north side of the James, General Weitzel, with a division of the Twenty-fourth Corps and two divisions of the Twenty-fifth, which were not employed in active service during Sunday's battle. That night there was great activity among the rebels till darkness concealed them, and their regimental bands filled the air with music. General Weitzel's troops gave a similar concert till the hour of midnight, when silence settled upon the contending armies. The thunder of the exploding rams came to Weitzel's ear with no doubtful meaning. He said to himself, "Lee is evacuating Richmond." He looked away toward the proud capital, and saw the heavens flushed with the suicidal fires kindled by the maddened leaders of revolt, from whose grasp it had been wrung. Having orders to push on whenever assured that a way was opened to the city, he impatiently waited for the morning to light a reconnoissance to its walls. The Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry dashed forward as soon as their arms could reflect the beams of day, and soon returned to report deserted camps and a flying foe.

Jeff. Davis had learned the impending fate of his capital, while at church on the Sabbath, and, rising, hastened to gather his personal effects and make his escape. The way to Richmond was open. Southwest of Petersburg had been found the key that had unlocked its stubborn gates, and Weitzel was instantly on the road. Let his own dispatch tell the story :

CITY POINT, VIRGINIA, April 8—11 ▲. M.

General Weitzel telegraphs as follows:

"We took Richmond at 8:15 this morning. I captured many guns. The enemy left in great haste.

"The city is on fire in one place. We are making every effort to put it out.

"The people received us with enthusiastic expressions of joy.

"General Grant started early this morning, with the army, toward the Danville road, to cut off Lee's retreating army, if possible." President Lincoln has gone to the front. (Signed)

T. S. BOWERS, Assistant Adjutant-General.
E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War.

"And so Richmond fell! Richmond, the capital of the so-called Confederacy; the city which for four years baffled all efforts for its reduction. Thanks to the genius of Grant and a favoring Providence, the rebellion was now in the last throes of dissolution. Right and justice were again vindicated, and the long, weary, and bloody war for the Union, the Constitution, and the perpetuity of American liberty was rapidly drawing to a close. The chief of the rebellion was a fugitive, his main army was broken and flying, and there remained now no hope in his mind, or those of his followers, that the Union could ever be overthrown, and a Southern Confederacy established."

"On Sabbath morning, April 2d, 1865, amidst the roar of artillery, and the crash, and flame, and smoke of burning houses, the great rebellion died. Richmond and Petersburg were captured. Hundreds of guns, and thousands of prisoners taken. Lee's army shattered, broken, and scattered to the four winds! This is the history of the day. The turning point of the magnificent movement was the battle fought by Sheridan at Five Forks Saturday afternoon, with his cavalry and the Fifth Corps. The battle was, practically, Longstreet's ruin. Fifty-seven hundred prisoners and three batteries of artillery were the material trophies of the victory, but the moral results were of far greater importance. Our loss in the battle was severe. The only general officer lost was Brevet Brigadier-General Winthrop, commanding the First Brigade of General Ayers's division of the Fifth Corps; one of those chivalrous soldiers New England sent into the war.