The problem of assigning a proper significance to Five Forks is a difficult one. It is now known that Lee and the Confederate government officials were on the verge of abandoning their capital. In June of the previous year the Southside Railroad had been a most important objective of the invading army, but the plight of Lee’s army had grown so desperate during the intervening months that whether the railroad remained open or not mattered little. Grant, of course, did not know this as a positive fact, although the uncomfortable situation of his opponents was something of which he was doubtless aware. The real importance of Five Forks lay in the probability that, by making it more difficult for Lee to escape, it brought the inevitable a little closer. Lt. Col. Horace Porter, of Grant’s staff, was positive more than 30 years later that news of Sheridan’s success prompted the Union commander in chief to issue the orders for the attack that carried the city. FALL OF PETERSBURG AND RICHMOND Continuously throughout the night following the Battle of Five Forks, the Union artillery played upon the Confederate earthworks and dropped shells into the city. Troops were prepared for a general assault ordered for the following dawn. At 4:40 a.m., April 2, 1865, a frontal attack began with the sound of a signal gun from Fort Fisher. A heavy ground fog added to the confusion as the Federals drove in the Confederate pickets, cut away the abatis, and stormed over the works. The story of the fighting along the Petersburg front on that spring Sunday is one of Union success over stout Confederate resistance. Maj. Gen. Horatio G. Wright’s Union VI Corps broke through the works defended by troops of A. P. Hill’s Corps and rolled up the Confederate line to right and left, while several regiments rushed on toward the Southside Railroad. Other elements of Grant’s army swept away the remnants of the Confederate lines along Hatcher’s Run. General Hill was killed early in the day by a Union soldier near the Boydton Plank Road while on the way to rally his men at Hatcher’s Run. The desperateness of the Southern position was shown when, about 10 a.m., Lee telegraphed President Davis to inform him of the turn of events at Petersburg. The message read: “I advise that all preparations be made for leaving Richmond tonight.” Davis received the message while attending Sunday services at St. Paul’s Church. He left immediately, destroying the calm of worship, to prepare for evacuating the capital. The flight of the Confederate government was promptly begun. By midday the entire outer line to the west of Petersburg had been captured, with the exception of Fort Gregg. The city was now completely surrounded except to the north. The left of the Union line finally rested on the bank of the Appomattox River after months of strenuous effort.