On August 25, 2 days after the fighting at Globe Tavern had ended, the Confederates scored a minor victory with a surprise attack. Their blow was aimed at Hancock’s II Corps busily engaged in destroying railroad tracks at Reams Station, nearly 5 miles below Globe Tavern. The II Corps, containing large numbers of inexperienced recruits, was badly beaten and more than 1,700 were taken prisoner. The Southern victory was shortlived, for the destruction of their rail communications was continued. The best that Lee could hope for in the future would be to stem the Federal advance. In mid-September, Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton, cavalry commander of the Army of Northern Virginia since J. E. B. Stuart’s death in May, led a remarkable raid of 4,000 mounted troops around the rear of the Union army, now numbering 80,000. He succeeded in returning to Petersburg on September 17 with about 2,400 head of cattle and more than 300 prisoners, while suffering losses of only 61 men in two engagements with the enemy. Although this raised the morale of the Confederates, it did not change the course of the campaign. The iron band being forged outside their city was a reality, and Grant, a tenacious man, had not loosened his grip. [Illustration: _Federal soldiers in the trenches before Petersburg. By 1864, most of the men of the Armies of the Potomac and the James were veteran combat soldiers, but the strain of siege warfare eventually affected even the most hardened of them. “It was hell itself,” one soldier recalled, “and it is wondrous to me that so many of us survived the event.”_] [Illustration: _Constructing gabions for the attack on Petersburg. When filled with earth, these cylindrical, basket-like objects offered strong protection against enemy fire._] [Illustration: _Federal pickets in front of Union Fort Sedgwick, opposite Confederate Fort Mahone. Note how the gabions are being used._] [Illustration: _Rifled siege guns in Union Battery IV. Fire from this battery helped to seal off the Confederate breakthrough at Fort Stedman in March 1865._] [Illustration: _Capt. James H. Cooper’s Battery, 1st Pennsylvania Light Artillery, V Corps. While the men were standing to their guns to have this picture taken, a Confederate battery, thinking the Federals were preparing to fire, opened up on them. The famous Civil War photographer Mathew B. Brady is standing with hands in pocket beside the trail of the second gun._] UNION ENCIRCLEMENT CONTINUES The relentless westerly advance of the besieging force was soon resumed after the capture of the Weldon Railroad in August. Constant skirmishing occurred between the lines until, in late September, Grant struck again.