Petersburg question

MikeyB

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Sep 13, 2018
After the victory at Five Forks, Grant ordered a general advance on the Petersburg entrenchments. Many of the Union soldiers were expecting this to be their end, knowing the strength of the fortifications.

Had Lee already started to evacuate Petersburg immediately after Five Forks and the trenches were substantially weakened, allowing the Union successes? Or were the defenses really not as formidable as people thought because the lines had already been stretched so thin? Was Union success at Five Forks a necessary precursor to overwhelming the lines as Lee immediately started to withdraw, or were the lines already pretty weakened and Five Forks was simply the spark?
 
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/People/Robert_E_Lee/FREREL/4/4*.html

"Had Lee known early in the evening the full magnitude of the disaster that had befallen Pickett [at Five Forks] he might have ordered the evacuation of the Petersburg line before daylight. Even as it was, with the enemy on his right flank and the river behind him, he must have ridden back to the Turnbull house in full knowledge that what little hope remained to him hung on the arrival of Longstreet before
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Grant assaulted."
...
"Lee's situation now presented two obvious problems. One was to hold Petersburg until night and then to get out with the troops still on the lines. The other problem was to effect a new concentration with the forces cut off on the right, which forces he could not now help in their efforts to escape. He was not certain, shortly after 10 o'clock, that he would be able to maintain his position until night and he saw no prospect of doing more; but he determined, if he could hold out that long, to evacuate the whole front as soon as darkness fell, and to reconcentrate on the Richmond and Danville Railroad."
...
"As soon as he was reasonably sure that he could hold Petersburg until nightfall, Lee went to the McIlwaine or Dupuy house, •one mile from the city,48 and proceeded to arrange the details of the evacuation."
 
Lee was planning to bail even before grant launched that attack. the result of five forks was the nail in the coffin of the dimmock line and his position at petersburg, and prompted Lee to make the preparations to evacuate.
 
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