Converging rail lines made Petersburg the southern gateway to Richmond, and both U.S. Army General Grant and Confederate General Lee knew that if Petersburg fell, the Confederate capital at Richmond would fall as well. For nine and a half months, from June 1864 to April 1865, United States and Confederate armies waged a brutal campaign in which the war became a methodical struggle of endurance and hardship, ending with the Confederacy on the verge of total defeat. During the siege, Grant directed the movement of Federal armies throughout the South from his headquarters at City Point in Hopewell, one of the busiest ports in America. Along the Eastern Front, soldiers endured constant artillery and rifle fire, and in places the lines were extremely close. On the Western Front, Union efforts to cut Petersburg's supply lines stretched the Confederate defenses to their breaking point. At Five Forks Battlefield on April 1, 1865, U.S. troops defeated and captured nearly one-fifth of the Confederate forces, and Petersburg and Richmond fell two days later.