there at once and move against Lee in his new position.  I knew that Lee was no fool, as he would have been to have put himself and his army between two formidable streams like the James and Appomattox rivers, and between two such armies as those of the Potomac and the James.  Then these streams coming together as they did to the east of him, it would be only necessary to close up in the west to have him thoroughly cut off from all supplies or possibility of reinforcement.  It would only have been a question of days, and not many of them, if he had taken the position assigned to him by the so-called engineer, when he would have been obliged to surrender his army.  Such is one of the ruses resorted to in war to deceive your antagonist.  My judgment was that Lee would necessarily have to evacuate Richmond, and that the only course for him to pursue would be to follow the Danville Road.  Accordingly my object was to secure a point on that road south of Lee, and I told Meade this.  He suggested that if Lee was going that way we would follow him.  My reply was that we did not want to follow him; we wanted to get ahead of him and cut him off, and if he would only stay in the position he (Meade) believed him to be in at that time, I wanted nothing better; that when we got in possession of the Danville Railroad, at its crossing of the Appomattox River, if we still found him between the two rivers, all we had to do was to move eastward and close him up.  That we would then have all the advantage we could possibly have by moving directly against him from Petersburg, even if he remained in the position assigned him by the engineer officer.

I had held most of the command aloof from the intrenchments, so as to start them out on the Danville Road early in the morning, supposing that Lee would be gone during the night.  During the night I strengthened Sheridan by sending him Humphreys’s corps.

Lee, as we now know, had advised the authorities at Richmond, during the day, of the condition of affairs, and told them it would be impossible for him to hold out longer than night, if he could hold out that long.  Davis was at church when he received Lee’s dispatch.  The congregation was dismissed with the notice that there would be no evening service.  The rebel government left Richmond about two o’clock in the afternoon of the 2d.

At night Lee ordered his troops to assemble at Amelia Court House, his object being to get away, join Johnston if possible, and to try to crush Sherman before I could get there.  As soon as I was sure of this I notified Sheridan and directed him to move out on the Danville Railroad to the south side of the Appomattox River as speedily as possible.  He replied that he already had some of his command nine miles out.  I then ordered the rest of the Army of the Potomac under Meade to follow the same road in the morning.  Parke’s corps followed by the same road, and the Army of the James was directed to follow the road which ran alongside of the South Side Railroad to Burke’s Station, and to repair the railroad and telegraph as they proceeded.  That road was a 5 feet gauge, while our rolling stock was all of the 4 feet 8 1/2 inches gauge; consequently the rail on one side of the track had to be taken up throughout the whole length and relaid so as to conform to the gauge of our cars and locomotives.