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Introduction

This letter describes the Battle of Five Forks. What Lincoln is implicitly telling Seward is that on that very afternoon, while he himself was situated only a few miles away, the Union Army had finally, after nine long months, broken through the critical defenses around Petersburg, Virginia and put the enemy on the run.

Abraham Lincoln, autograph letter signed to William H. Seward
City Point, Va., 1 Apr. 1865
AMs 527/10

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