By the spring of 1865 the war in the East had narrowed to a single stretch of Virginia earth. For nine months Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant had held Robert E. Lee fast in front of Petersburg, a railroad town about 23 miles (37 km) south of the Confederate capital at Richmond. This was not a battle in the open field. It was a siege: two armies dug into facing lines of trench and earthwork that ran for more than 30 miles (48 km), the longest fortified front the continent had ever seen.

Petersburg mattered because of its railroads. Five lines met there, and through them came most of the food and supply that kept Richmond and Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia alive. Grant could not storm the works cheaply, so he did something slower and surer instead. He reached west, again and again, stretching his lines to cut the railroads one at a time and force Lee to stretch with him. Lee had fewer men with every passing month, and a longer line to cover. The arithmetic was running out.

Lee knew it. His army was hungry, ragged, and shrinking as men slipped away home. In late March he gambled on a breakout, a dawn assault on the Union line east of town meant to crack Grant’s grip and free the army to march south. It failed, and it cost him men he could not replace.

With that gone, Grant pressed the western flank in earnest. On April 1, out beyond the end of the trenches at a crossroads called Five Forks, Major General Philip H. Sheridan (North) smashed the Confederate right under Major General George Pickett (South), taking thousands of prisoners and the road to the last open railroad. When the news reached him, Grant did not wait for morning to plan. He ordered the whole army to assault the Petersburg lines at first light.