The Articles of Agreement dictated by Union general Ulysses S. Grant and signed by Confederate general Robert E. Lee in April 1865 signaled that the American Civil War was nearly over. After Grant captured the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, on April 3, 1865, Lee’s army of fewer than thirty thousand straggling men was on the run and pressured on three sides by three times as many men. Lee’s last hope to reach the food and provisions waiting at Appomattox Station was dashed when General Philip Sheridan’s cavalry arrived first on April 8.