look out for the
great event, in which such giants as Lee and Johnston on one hand, and
Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, and Hancock on the other, were to
finish the game of military mathematics which had been progressing
during four years. Carleton wrote, March 31, 1865, "How inspiring to
watch the close of such a game." He expected a great battle. "The last
flicker of a candle is sometimes its brightest flame."

He was not disappointed. On mid-afternoon of April 1st, Carleton was
at Sheridan's headquarters witnessing the battle of Five Forks, and
the awful bombardment of Saturday night. Then went out Grant's order
to "attack along the whole line." Now began the bayonet war. At 4
o'clock on that eventful Sunday, like a great tidal wave, the Union
Army rolled over the rebel entrenchments. This is the way Carleton
describes it in _Putnam's Magazine_:

"Lee attempted to retrieve the disaster on Saturday by depleting his
left and centre, to reinforce his right. Then came the order from
Grant, 'Attack vigorously all along the line.' How splendidly it was
executed! The Ninth, the Sixth, the Second, the Twenty-fourth Corps,
all went tumbling in upon the enemy's works, like breakers upon the
beach, tearing away chevaux-de-frise, rushing into the ditches,
sweeping over the embankments, and dashing through the embrasures of
the forts. In an hour the C. S. A.,--the Confederate _Slave
Argosy_,--the Ship of State launched but four years ago, which went
proudly sailing, with the death's-head and cross-bones at her truck,
on a cruise against Civilization and Christianity, hailed as a
rightful belligerent, furnished with guns, ammunition, provisions, and
all needful supplies, by England and France, was thrown a helpless
wreck upon the shores of time."

On April 2d, he wrote from Petersburg Heights telling of the movements
of Sheridan's cavalry and the Ninth, Second, and Twenty-fourth Corps.

On the 3d, he was in Richmond, writing, "There is no longer a
Confederacy."

He had been awakened by the roar of the Confederate blowing up of
ironclads in the James River. A few minutes later he was in the
Petersburg entrenchments. He rode solitary and lone from City Point
to Richmond, entering the city by the Newmarket road, and overtaking a
division of the Twenty-fifth Corps. Dismounting at the Spottswood
House, he registered his name on the hotel book, so thickly written
with the names of Confederate generals, as the first guest from a