The experiment of Fitzhugh Lee at Wilson's Wharf taught the rebels a lesson as to the conduct of negro troops. Negro troops were never captured in a fort entrusted to their defence.
I at length learned that General Grant would now certainly come and join me at City Point, and that he was waiting for events to determine whether he would call to his assistance the Eighteenth Corps.1 Having also learned that there was in Petersburg a possible aggregation, including reserves, militia, and convalescents, of some two thousand men, of which not more than two thirds would be substantially effective, I organized an expedition of eleven thousand men under General Smith, and put them in column at Bermuda Hundred to attack Petersburg on the 29th of May. They were ready to march the very next morning, but on the evening of the 28th the transportation to take them away arrived with positive orders that they should at once go to Grant.
Much as I desired the capture of Petersburg, which was as certain as any future event could be, I felt it my duty, knowing in what straits General Grant believed himself to be, to give, although reluctantly, the order for their embarkation.
The Eighteenth Corps, as then reorganized, contained some sixteen thousand effective men, and their removal left me actually at Bermuda,--reckoning the cavalry, a part of whom were armed only with pistols, and possible convalescents in the hospitals,--less than eight thousand effective troops,2 leaving only small garrisons at Spring Hill on the enemy's side of the Appomatox, City Point, Fort Powhatan, and Fort Pocahontas.
The capture of Fort Powhatan or Fort Pocahontas, or both, by the rebels would render it impossible for Grant to cross his army over the James, because the boats could not get up near enough to allow him to continue his line of march by the Chickahominy route across the James River.
I should have felt little alarm for the safety of Bermuda had my fortifications been completed in Gillmore's front. Although twice
