Sheridan's victorious force on his flank made it impossible.
The Winchester men were in a skirmish or two, but for a few days most of their work was maneuvering, that is, they were continually riding in search of better positions.

At times, the rain still poured, but the three young captains were so full of expectancy that they scarcely noticed it.

Dick often heard the trumpets singing across the marshes, and now and then he saw the Confederate skirmishers and the roofs of Petersburg.

He beheld too with his own eyes the circle of steel closing about the last hope of the Confederacy, and he felt every day, with increasing strength, that the end was near.
But the outside world did not realize that the great war was to close so suddenly.

It had raged with the utmost violence for four years and it seemed the normal condition in America.