THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
369 
Accordingly the troops, leaving the 9th corps to rest in Petersburg, and to 
garrison it as a base of supplies, moved westward in the order in which they 
happened to find themselves, the cavalry reaching far ahead and feeling for all 
roads leading to the south. 
They marched from before daylight till far into the night, sometimes all 
on one road, sometimes on parallel ones, with the artillery generally well up 
to the front, but the roads in rear cut and blocked up by the enormous 
trains of supply and other wagons; the expense train extending, when on 
one road, 18 miles, and the main train still more. On the night of the 4th 
Sheridan struck and brought to a standstill some portion of the enemy, near 
Jetersville; the infantry, though just in from a 14 hours march, were at his 
request hurried towards him during the night, but failed to reach him owing 
to one of his own divisions which had mistaken its way, blockading the roads : 
they joined him on the 5th, and everything was made ready for the attack 
which he was expecting; the enemy, however, did not come on, but bore 
away to their right to try again for the south farther on. 
The 5th April having been thus mostly expended in preparing for action, 
it was the afternoon of the 6th before the infantry, skilfully disposed by 
General Meade came up with the enemy again, near Sailor's Run, in such 
shape that whilst the cavalry barred their passage to the west, the 6th corps 
assailed them from the south, and the second from the east, the unfordable 
Appomattox (over which they had two bridges) running along their rear on 
the north. The result was that the entire rear guard, though fighting 
obstinately, was either killed or taken, together with much artillery and 
wagon train. General Sheridan's dispatch on this action, as on previous 
ones, appeared to claim the whole success for himself, whereas the fighting 
was done principally by the two corps (having together 25,000 actually in 
the fight) under General Meade's orders, the picking up of prisoners by all, 
including the cavalry (now about 7000 strong). 
This was perhaps the only occasion of the campaign when the artillery 
might find satisfactory positions; the ground being comparatively open and 
extensive they were enabled to concentrate so much fire on the principal 
body of infantry as to force them gradually, and in spite of themselves, into 
a neighbouring ravine for cover; the outlet of the ravine was difficult, and 
the federals, running up to the brink of it, easily made the whole of them 
prisoners. 
The confederate army could not raise its head anywhere without receiving 
a repetition of this sort of treatment at the hands of the numerous, confident, 
and well-handled legions that beset its path; and it could not sufficiently 
outmarch the federals to get across their front to the south; consequently, 
when, on the 8th April, a similar affair seemed to be imminent on a larger 
scale (the 5th and Orde's corps being then present), near Appomattox Court 
House, everybody in the federal army, except some few non-combatants, was 
glad that General Grant's overtures made the surrender of the enemy and the 
end of their slaughter, distress, and unavailing devotion, probable. 
The terms of surrender were correctly reported by the press; in addition 
the men were allowed to take home with them, for their spring ploughing, 
any horses their own property; this was by the good-will of General Grant, 
who however had refused to allow it to form an article in the terms. 
