After Gettysburg and minor operations during the summer and fall of 1863, Gen. Robert E. Lee and his Confederate army settled into winter quarters on the hills around Orange Court House. Lee depended on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad for supplies and reinforcements, but the line could not sustain the army with adequate provisions. In January 1864, Lee told the secretary of war that subsistence for the army was a matter of vital moment and his chief subject of anxiety. In April, he again warned that he might be attacked any day and that the scarcity of supplies gave him the greatest uneasiness. When Gen. James Longstreet and his Confederate command of 10,000 men returned from campaigning in Tennessee, the troops had to march the final leg of their journey because the trains could carry only 1,500 men per day. On April 28, Lee was moved to tears as he reviewed Longstreet's troops, and within five days his reinforced army was marching to intercept Grant's Federal forces in the Wilderness, beginning the last grand campaign of the war.
