At 12:30 p.m., General Grant sent President Lincoln the news he had been waiting for: “There has been much hard fighting this morning,” the general telegraphed. “The enemy drove our left from near Dabney's house back well toward the Boydton plank road. We are now about to take the offensive at that point, and I hope will more than recover the lost ground.”1

The final campaign, the battle that Lincoln hoped would be the last of the war, had started. The rain was still coming down in torrents, but General Grant's advance was underway. General Sheridan had assigned a division under General George Armstrong Custer to keep working on the roads to make them more passable. General Lee sent two infantry divisions, along with most of his cavalry, to stop Sheridan in the vicinity of Dinwiddie Court House.

The Confederates managed to push Sheridan back; two Federal divisions broke and ran when the enemy attacked. General Grant blamed General Gouverneur K. Warren for this setback. According to Grant, General Warren had moved his troops much too slowly and, when he finally did move forward to reinforce Sheridan, he was much too deliberate about it. If Warren's troops had been in position, and had been on hand to support General Sheridan, the reverse never would have taken place.

But the setback turned out to be minor and temporary. That afternoon, General Sheridan recovered from the morning's loss and set to strike out and go smashing things, as he phrased it, at the strategic crossroads of Five Forks, just a few miles away. General Lee had set his men to digging trenches and earthworks at Five Forks, which was the junction of five roads and a vitally important strategic location. Both Grant and Lee recognized this. General Lee knew that Five Forks was the key to protecting his right flank; he would not be able to stay in Petersburg if Grant took possession of this crossroads. General Grant also knew this, and realized that General Lee would do his best to protect Five Forks. He was not at all surprised when General Sheridan reported that Lee was hard at work fortifying the junction.

It had stopped raining by late afternoon, and the sun had actually broken through the clouds. General Sheridan ordered Custer and his cavalry to make a counterattack, a grand charge at the enemy. Custer did his best to comply, but the ground was too soft and soggy. The horses were barely able to walk through the quagmire or make any headway at all, let alone gallop. The grand charge Sheridan and Custer had planned got stuck in the mud.

But even though Custer's cavalry charge failed, infantry units managed push their way forward in spite of the mud, and drove the Confederates back to their own lines. The Federal troops not only reoccupied the ground they lost that morning, they even captured four of the enemy's flags. In a communiqué to Confederate Secretary of War John C. Breckinridge, General Lee summed up the day's activities. He wrote that “the enemy advanced and was firmly met by our troops and driven back” to the vicinity of Boydton Plank Road. “Our troops were then withdrawn and were followed by the enemy, who in turn drove us back to our lines.”2

President Lincoln received a telegram from General Grant at about 7:00 p.m., which updated the general's earlier message and essentially said the same thing that Lee had told Breckinridge: “Our troops after being driven back on to Boydton plank road turned & drove the Enemy in turn & took the White Oak Road which we now have. This gives us the ground occupied by the Enemy this morning.”3 In what was probably an attempt to cheer up the president, Grant added, “I will send you a rebel flag captured by our troops in driving the Enemy back,” and went on to say that four flags had been captured.

Although President Lincoln was clearly very nervous and apprehensive about the fighting that had finally begun, it might have encouraged him to know that General Grant and General Sheridan had no doubts at all. Colonel Horace Porter spoke with General Sheridan just north of Dinwiddie Court House and found the general happy and optimistic. A band from one of Sheridan's units was nearby, and was “playing ‘Nellie Bly’ as cheerfully as if furnishing music for a country picnic.”⁴

The colonel found General Sherman in the same mood as his musicians. He was not at all upset by the day's events—he said that it had been “one of the liveliest days in his existence,” and went on to say that he would hold his position at Dinwiddie “at all hazards.”⁵ As far as he was concerned, it was the enemy's troops that were in danger, not his: “We at last have drawn the enemy's infantry out of its trenches, and this is our chance to attack it.”

The general's main concern was with the immediate future, for what was to come during the next few days, and with preparing for the attack on General Lee's infantry. Troops kept moving into position, but the roads were still knee-deep in mud. To complicate matters still further, a bridge had to be built over Gravelley Run in the middle of the night. “Staff-officers were rushing from one headquarters to another,” Colonel Porter remembered, “making extraordinary efforts to hurry up the movement of troops.”⁶ Everyone from President Lincoln to every private in every regiment waited for the morning.

President Lincoln received a telegram from Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton on the subject of the president's stay at City Point. “I hope you will stay to see it out, or for a few days at least,” Secretary Stanton said, encouraging Lincoln to stay where he was. “I have strong faith that your presence will have great influence in inducing exertions that will bring Richmond; compared to that no other duty can weigh a feather.”7 Stanton assured Lincoln that there was nothing for him to do in Washington except “petty private ends that you should not be annoyed with,” and ended with, “All well here.”

As Secretary of War, Stanton's main interest over Lincoln's presence at City Point concerned the army—that he would help maintain the army's morale and would also have a “great influence” on its “exertions.” But, as Gideon Welles pointed out, Stanton had also remarked “that it was quite as pleasant to have the President away,” and also said that he was “much less annoyed” when Lincoln was not in Washington.⁸