At the close of the battle I sent one of my staff—­Colonel Redwood Price—­to General Grant to report what had been done; that we had taken six generals and from nine to ten thousand prisoners.  On his way Price stopped at the headquarters of General Meade, where he learned that not the slightest intelligence of the occurrence on my line had been received, for I not being under Meade’s command, he had paid no attention to my movements.  Price gave the story of the battle, and General Meade, realizing its importance, sent directions immediately to General Wright to make his report of the engagement to the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac, assuming that Wright was operating independently of me in the face of Grant’s despatch Of 2 o’clock, which said that Wright was following the cavalry and would “go in with a vim” wherever I dictated.  Wright could not do else than comply with Meade’s orders in the case, and I, being then in ignorance of Meade’s reasons for the assumption, could say nothing.  But General Grant plainly intending, and even directing, that the corps should be under my command, remedied this phase of the matter, when informed of what had taken place, by requiring Wright to send a report of the battle through me.  What he then did, and what his intentions and orders were, are further confirmed by a reference to the episode in his “Memoirs,” where he gives his reasons for ordering the Sixth Corps to abandon the move on Amelia Court House and pass to the left of the army.  On the same page he also says, referring to the 6th of April:  “The Sixth Corps now remained with the cavalry under Sheridan’s direct command until after the surrender.”  He unquestionably intended all of this, but his purpose was partly frustrated by General Meade’s action next morning in assuming direction of the movements of the corps; and before General Grant became aware of the actual conditions the surrender was at hand.

CHAPTER VIII.

LINCOLN’S laconic despatch—­capturing Lee’s supplies—­delighted
engineers—­the confederates’ last effort—­A flag of truce—­general
Geary’s “Last ditch” Absurdity—­meeting of Grant and Lee—­the
surrender—­estimate of general Grant.

The first report of the battle of Sailor’s Creek that General Grant received was, as already stated, an oral message carried by Colonel Price, of my staff.  Near midnight I sent a despatch giving the names of the generals captured.  These were Ewell, Kershaw, Barton, Corse, Dubose, and Custis Lee.  In the same despatch I wrote:  “If the thing is pressed, I think that Lee will surrender.”  When Mr. Lincoln, at City Point, received this word from General Grant, who was transmitting every item