Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 3

‘ [515] regiment tearing up the track on the Southside railroad, west of Petersburg. Ord has gone in with Wright. I do not see how the portion of the rebel army north of where Wright broke through are to escape.’ While he wrote, a message arrived from the Twenty-fourth corps. Grant stopped to read it, and then continued: ‘Dispatch just received from Ord states some of his troops have just captured the enemy's works south of Hatcher's run, and are pushing on. This is bringing our troops rapidly to a focus with a portion of the rebels in the centre.’ Ten minutes later he announced the capture to Meade: ‘We have the forts next to Hatcher's run on both sides. I think there will be no difficulty in Humphreys marching forward now towards Petersburg, or towards the retreating foe.’ A little later he said to the officer in charge at City Point: ‘Notify Mulford to make no more deliveries of rebel prisoners whilst the battle is going on;’ and in the same dispatch: ‘I have not yet heard from Sheridan, but I have an abiding faith that he is in the right place and at the right time.’

Grant had remained at his Headquarters to receive reports until he learned that Ord as well as Wright had broken the lines, and then he rode out to direct the varying operations of his armies. It was now all one battle-field from Petersburg to beyond Five Forks. Everywhere the national columns had burst the rebel barriers, and were surging inward towards the railroad and the town that had been their goal for a year. The various corps were becoming confused as they converged, and it needed the chief to disentangle the lines. He soon approached the broken defences, and spurred his horse