told Sheridan to lead his troops around the Confederate right flank and to fight the Confederates, with infantry support, if the Confederates came out of their trenches. Otherwise, Sheridan should wreck the railroads as much as possible and either return to the Petersburg lines or join Sherman in North Carolina at his discretion. Grant ordered two corps of the Army of the Potomac, the V Corps under Major General Gouverneur K. Warren and the II Corps under Major General Andrew A. Humphreys, to support Sheridan on his right flank, to the east of his objectives. Grant wanted these infantry corps to outflank the Confederates in their defenses and prevent them from interfering with Sheridan's mission, pushing them back to their lines if they came out to fight. Warren's corps initially also was ordered to seize Dinwiddie Court House, Virginia, which also would capture a portion of the Boydton Plank Road at that location, but later that task was given to Sheridan. Under Grant's order, on the night of March 27–28, Major General Edward Ord, quietly moved units from the Army of the James, including two divisions of Major General John Gibbon's XXIV Corps, a division of Major General Godfrey Weitzel's XXV Corps and Brigadier General Ranald S. Mackenzie's cavalry division from the Richmond lines to fill in the Petersburg lines to be vacated by the II Corps when they moved to support Sheridan. Confederate Lieutenant General James Longstreet's corps defending the Richmond lines failed to detect Ord's movement, thus limiting the number of men Lee could move to counter the movement of Grant's forces without fatally weakening the Richmond lines. Description of area roads A good verbal description of the roads and positions in the area, given by Brigadier General Joshua Chamberlain in his 1915 book The Passing of the Armies, is recited in the footnote. Initial movements: March 29 Warren's V Corps of over 17,000 men moved from their reserve position south of the Union front line on the Stage Road at 3:00 a.m. on March 29, crossed Rowanty Creek and proceeded west on Vaughan Road to the intersection with Quaker Road. Warren reported to his immediate superior, Major General George G. Meade, who remained in direct tactical command of the Army of the Potomac, that Dinwiddie Court House was undefended. By 8:45 a.m., Meade sent an order to Warren which arrived at 10:20 a.m., and told Warren to