CHAP, xxviii.] AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, 1861-18 5. 



475 



June 1864 until the spring of 1865 General Grant had 

 been to the south of the James river, but all his eflForts 

 to drive the Southerners from their lines had failed, and 

 Lee's ragged but gallant army held their own in spite of 

 the vigorous attacks of overwhelming numbers. 



In January 1865 Grant seems to have conceived the 

 idea that if he could cut off the communications of 

 Richmond with the heart of the Confederacy he would 

 stop the supplies and so enforce an evacuation of the 

 place or a surrender. This duty he laid out for his 

 horsemen. 



There were three main lines of supply from the interior 

 into Richmond ; the James river canal on the north, 

 the Danville railway on the south of it, leading to Rich- 

 mond, and more to the south stiU a railway from 

 Burksville to Petersburg called the South Side Railway. 

 To cut these was now Grant's great object. Sheridan, 

 with a large force of cavalry some 10,000 strong and a 

 much larger force of infantry, was in the vaUey of the 

 Shenandoah, north of the James river, watched by General 

 Early with a very weak force of Confederates. 



Sheridan was ordered in the early spring to defeat 

 Early, to push on to Lynchburg and there destroy the 

 canal, and crossing the James river, make a raid southerly 

 cutting the two railways, and sweeping down, to join 

 Sherman in North Carolina. Sheridan set out on the 

 27th February and reached Waynesboro on the 2nd 

 March, when General Early, fearfully overmatched, was 

 virtually run over by the swarm of Federal horsemen. 

 Then pressing on he reached the canal, and blowing up 

 the locks and breaking down the banks, so destroyed it 

 as to make it utterly useless. He was unable however 

 to cross the James river, which was much swollen, and 

 turning to the east followed its banks towards Rich- 

 mond, which he passed to the north, and on the 10th 

 March reached the Pamunkey at White House, where he 

 opened communications with Grant's extreme right. On 

 the 26th of March he crossed the James river at City 

 Point and took up his position in Grant's rear. Grant s 

 lines extended from City Point for twenty-five miles 



