could ill afford to lose. On the afternoon of March 25, 1865 at the Battle of Jones's Farm, the II Corps and VI Corps captured Confederate picket lines near Armstrong's Mill which extended the left end of the Union line about closer to the Confederate fortifications. This put the VI Corps within about of the Confederate line. After the Confederate defeats at Fort Stedman and Jones's Farm, Lee knew that Grant soon would move against the only remaining Confederate supply lines to Petersburg, the South Side Railroad and the Boydton Plank Road, and possibly cut off all routes of retreat from Richmond and Petersburg. Opposing forces Union Confederate Beginning of Appomattox Campaign Grant's orders On March 24, 1865, the day before the Confederate attack on Fort Stedman, Grant already planned for an offensive to begin March 29, 1865. The objectives were to draw the Confederates out into an open battle where they might be defeated and, if the Confederates held their lines, to cut the remaining road and railroad supply and communication routes between areas of the Confederacy still under Confederate control and Petersburg and Richmond. The Battle of Fort Stedman had no effect on Grant's plans. The Union Army lost no ground due to the attack, did not need to contract their lines and suffered casualties that were only a small percentage of their force. Grant ordered Major General Edward Ord to move part of the Army of the James from the lines near Richmond to fill in the line to be vacated by the II Corps under Major General Andrew A. Humphreys at the southwest end of the Petersburg line before that corps moved to the west. This freed two corps of Major General George Meade's Army of the Potomac for offensive action against Lee's flank and railroad supply lines: Major General Andrew A. Humphrey's II Corps and the V Corps commanded by Major General Gouverneur K. Warren. Grant ordered the two infantry corps, along with Major General Philip Sheridan's cavalry corps, still designated the Army of the Shenandoah under Sheridan's command, to move west. Sheridan's cavalry consisted of two divisions commanded by Brigadier General Thomas Devin and Brigadier General (Brevet Major General) George Armstrong Custer but under the overall command of Brigadier General (Brevet Major General) Wesley Merritt, as an unofficial corps commander, and the division of Major General George Crook detached from the Army of the