At the end of March the hour of decisive struggle was plainly at hand.
The wind had dried the roads; artillery could move; the Federal left
was nearly in sight of the Southside road; one spring, and General
Grant could lay hold on that great war-artery, and then nothing would
be left to Lee but retreat or surrender.
Such was the condition of things at Petersburg, in these last days of
March. Grant was ready with his one hundred and fifty thousand infantry
to strike Lee's forty thousand. Sheridan was ready with his twelve
thousand superbly mounted cavalry, to hurl himself against the two
thousand half-armed horsemen, on starved and broken-down animals, under
command of General Fitz Lee. A child could have told the result. The
idea of resistance, with any hope, in the defences, any longer, was a
chimera. Lee was a great soldier--history contains few greater. The
army of Northern Virginia was brave--the annals of the world show none
braver. But there was one thing which neither great generalship, or
supreme courage could effect. Opposed by one hundred and fifty thousand
well-fed troops, with every munition of war, forty thousand starving
men, defending a line of forty miles, must in the end meet capture or
destruction.
The country did not see it, but General Lee did.
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