the line within easy striking distance, about , of the Confederate line. After the Confederate defeats at Fort Stedman and Jones's Farm, Lee knew that Grant would soon move against the only remaining Confederate supply lines to Petersburg, the Southside Railroad and the Boydton Plank Road. Meanwhile, on the night of March 25, Major General Philip Sheridan's cavalry arrived at Harrison's Landing on the north bank of the James River. Sheridan's force of about 10,000 troopers was minus a brigade detached to guard prisoners and nearly 3,000 men who were detached because of a lack of replacement horses for those which died or became disabled or unserviceable in the Shenandoah Valley campaign of 1864 and the return to Richmond. Campaign prelude The Confederate attack on Fort Stedman did not deter Grant from continuing with his plan of March 24 for an offensive to begin March 29. March 26, 1865 On March 26, 1865, Lee held a council of war at which Lee decided that Major General Cadmus M. Wilcox's division must recapture a crucial elevated portion of their old picket line called McIlwaine's Hill. Also on that date, Lee wrote to Davis that he feared it would be impossible to prevent Sherman joining forces with Grant and that he did not think it prudent to maintain the Confederate army's current positions as Sherman came near to them. After the Fort Stedman defeat, Lee realized that he could not detach only a portion of his army to send to Johnston in North Carolina and still maintain the Richmond and Petersburg defenses. On the same date, Sheridan's cavalry crossed the James River on a pontoon bridge at Deep Bottom in Henrico County, Virginia, 11 miles (18 km) southeast of Richmond. Sheridan went ahead of his men to meet Grant at his headquarters at Appomattox Manor, the Richard Eppes plantation at City Point, Virginia. Grant told Sheridan that Sheridan would continue to report directly to him, not to Major General George G. Meade as part of the Army of the Potomac. He also assured Sheridan that his force would participate in closing the war in the movements at Petersburg and that Grant gave him discretionary authority to go to North Carolina in his March 24 orders only in the event he needed it. In the afternoon, Grant and Sheridan accompanied President Lincoln on a cruise up the James River. March 27, 1865: Action