LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Lee Grant: Armies
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By the end of March 1865, Sheridan had joined Grant in Virginia, and on March 29, with an army of more than 100,000 under his immediate command, Grant began the final campaign against Lee. The end came on April 9, at the village of Appomattox Court House, Virginia. There, at Lee's request, Grant met with his defeated foe to discuss terms for the surrender. Because Lee was now commander in chief of all the Confederate armies, his surrender effectively ended the war.
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At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. There, Grant offered generous terms that did much to ease the tensions between the armies and preserve some semblance of Southern pride, which would be needed to reconcile the warring sides. Within a few weeks, the American Civil War was effectively over; minor actions would continue until Kirby Smith surrendered his forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on June 2, 1865.
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In the autumn of 1862, Grant began planning the drive on Vicksburg, Mississippi, the Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River, which was to yield one of his greatest military successes. After several unsuccessful attempts on Vicksburg during the winter, Grant devised a new strategy of attack. In April 1863 he marched his army south along the west side of the river to a point well below the heavily defended city. There, with the aid of the Union river fleet, he crossed the river and began a swift march eastward. On May 12 he captured Jackson, Mississippi, the capital of the state, directly east of Vicksburg. Then he turned west toward Vicksburg.
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Knowing that the Confederates could no longer send reinforcements to the Vicksburg garrison, Grant turned west and won the Battle of Champion Hill. The Confederates retreated inside their fortifications at Vicksburg, and Grant promptly surrounded the city. Finding that assaults against the impregnable breastworks were futile, he settled in for a six-week siege. Cut off and with no possibility of relief, Pemberton surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. It was a devastating defeat for the Southern cause, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two, and, in conjunction with the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous day, is widely considered the turning point of the war. For this victory, President Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major general in the regular army, effective July 4.
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Now that he was in full command, Grant developed an overall strategy for the Union forces. Rather than capture cities or territory, he decided to go after the principal Southern armies. By coordinating the Union armies and the Union river fleet, he would apply relentless pressure against the Southern forces and wear them down. He relied on the economic strength of the North to keep him supplied with fresh equipment and troops while he kept the Southern armies from receiving resources of their own. Grant assigned the Army of the Potomac to engage the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert E. Lee. Grant's western armies would meanwhile take on the Confederate Army of the West and sweep eastward through the South in a wide circling movement.
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[A]bout 3 o'clock, Lee started to the front, where already the guns were announcing Gordon's preparations for an advance. Lee had not far to go, for what was left of the Army of Northern Virginia was now on and alongside a single road, the van not more than •four miles, at that hour, from the rearguard.7 He had less than 8000 armed infantry left in the ranks,8 though other thousands, too exhausted to bear them, had stuck their guns into the ground with the bayonets and were dragging slowly about, looking for food,9 or were hanging to the wagons, now reduced by capture and loss to 744.10 Gordon's corps, 7500 on March 25, was now about 2000.11 Field's division, the largest in the army and the one that had sustained the least fighting on the retreat, had present for duty only 3865 of an "aggregate present and absent" of 11,017. The number of Field's men reported "absent in C. S. lines" that day, 4497, was larger than the number present for duty.12 Pickett had only about 60 armed men, though he subsequently p119 reported about 740 others present at Appomattox without their muskets.13 The artillerists were 2073 officers and men, with 61 guns and 13 caissons.14 These had an average of 93 rounds of ammunition,15 which the chief ordnance officer reported "were the sole dependence in the State of Virginia."16 The cavalry were between 2100 and 2400.17
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