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The Road to Appomattox

Grant and Lee were well-matched adversaries who skillfully led their troops against each other in the last year of the Civil War. Grant knew how to exploit an opponent's weaknesses to best advantage. Lee's great strengths were his aggressiveness and his ability to asses an opponent's capabilities.

Lee's next objective after evacuating Petersburg on the night of April 2-3 was to join his soldiers with the Confederate forces from Richmond and Bermuda Hundred at Amelia Court House, on the Richmond & Danville Railroad west of Richmond. The survivors of Five Forks were also marching to the concentration point separately. Here his army was to receive provisions, but when the hungry soldiers arrived on the evening of April 4, only an ordnance train was waiting at the station. A breakdown in communication had resulted in a failure to send from Danville by rail the expected rations and forage. Food was scarce at the local farms, having been collected earlier for the army's use at Petersburg, and invaluable time was lost as foraging parties scrounged the neighborhood for food and provender. So the new supply of ammunition, as well as part of Lee's artillery and wagon train, were left behind as the Richmond forces under Lt. Gen. Richard Ewell arrived and joined the march.

By the time Lee's columns were re-formed and marching again on April 5, their twenty-four-hour head start over the Federal army was lost. Sheridan's cavalry had followed the direct route west from Petersburg, shadowing and then outdistancing Lt. Gen. Richard H. Anderson's columns slogging along the south bank of the Appomattox River. Brig. Gen. George A. Custer's horsemen hammered Rooney Lee's cavalry at Namozine Church on April 3. Federal infantry was not far behind. Sheridan's troopers arrived at Jetersville on April 4 and formed a line behind light entrenchments, blocking the road to Burkeville (Burke's Station) where the two railroads, the Southside and the Richmond & Danville, crossed and where Lee hoped to receive supplies from the south.

When a forced Confederate reconnaissance on April 5 determined that three corps of Union infantry, under General Meade, were backing up the Yankee horsemen while other Federal infantry units were fast approaching, Lee was compelled to march his army to the west. His new objective was Farmville, where supplies from Lynchburg were due to arrive to ease the growing hunger of the Rebels. Another difficult night march, on increasingly poor roads, was ordered.

On the night march of April 5 which carried through the next morning, the three parts of Lee's army, increasingly losing stragglers along the way, lost touch with one another. Longstreet's corps, in the van, arrived at Rice's Station by noon to protect the Southside Railroad—on which supplies would be arriving from Lynchburg—from Maj. Gen. Edward 0. C. Ord's Army of the James then making a forced march alongside the railroad from Burkeville to intercept the Rebels. But the three small corps following Longstreet became separated behind Longstreet's trains. On the afternoon of April 6, Lee, accompanied by the III Corps division of Maj. Gen. William Mahone, left Rice's and backtracked to high ground west of Big Sayler's Creek, a confluent of a two-branch stream that flows north into the Appomattox River twelve miles east of Farmville.

Riding east from the crest toward dusk, Lee observed the disorganized flight of hundreds of Confederate soldiers scrambling up the slope toward him, prompting him to utter an uncharacteristically alarmed exclamation, "My God! Has the army been dissolved?" What Lee saw were the survivors of the corps of R. H. Anderson, routed in one of three actions which made up the Battle of Sailor's Creek. Earlier in the day Anderson's force had been delayed by fighting the Federal cavalry on their southern flank. Anderson failed to get word to Longstreet that he had halted. As a result, a gap opened between Longstreet's wagon train and Anderson's corps, and Maj. Gen. George Crook alertly thrust his cavalry division into it. Crook was then joined by two other cavalry divisions under Brig. Gen. Thomas Devin and Brig. Gen. George A. Custer in fighting Anderson's two divisions, led by George Pickett and Maj. Gen. Bushrod Johnson, at a crossroads near the Marshall Farm. Sustaining only 172 casualties, the Federals routed the Rebels and inflicted a loss of 2,600, most of which were prisoners, including the capture of two general officers.

Just to the north of the intersection, Lt. Gen. Richard Ewell formed a battle line from Joseph Kershaw's veterans and his force of reservists, heavy artillerymen, and naval and marine corps personnel from the Richmond defenses under Maj. Gen. G. W. "Custis" Lee. He had already diverted the latter part of the wagon train to a road farther north, but failed to report the change to Maj. Gen. John B. Gordon, battling Maj. Gen. Andrew A. Humphreys's Federal II Corps which had marched in pursuit of the Rebel army from Jetersville. Ewell then was confronted by the 10,000-man VI Corps of Maj. Gen. Horatio Wright on the Hillsman Farm. Wright unlimbered 20 cannons about five RM. and fired shells at the 3,600-man Confederate force on a parallel ridge across Little Sayler's Creek. The Federals then assaulted the ridge but were beaten back. After a Rebel counterattack was also turned back, the VI Corps re-formed and their second charge shattered the Confederate line. Ewell, his staff, 7 other generals, and more than 3,400 Confederates were captured in the fight west of the Hillsman Farm.

A few miles to the north, John B. Gordon was being steadily pressed by Humphreys's column. What he did not know was that his corps was isolated and that the deep valley road his force was slowly withdrawing along was clogged by the supply train, having difficulty negotiating the double bridge over the confluence of the two branches of Sayler's Creek. After fighting from among the wagons, Gordon broke off the engagement after dark, losing a number of the wagons and enough soldiers to bring the total Confederate prisoner count for the day to more than 8,000.

The Battle of Sailor's Creek gave April 6, 1865, the distinction of being "Black Tuesday" in Confederate minds. The only factors that allowed the Army of Northern Virginia to escape annihilation that day were the safe passage of Longstreet's corps and Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry to Rice and High Bridge, and the rear guard that Mahone formed to allow a few of those engaged in the battle, chiefly from Gordon's corps, to escape to the west and re-form.

As the Confederates marched on April 6 toward Farmville, the cavalry of Maj. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee rushed to intercept a flying Federal column from Maj. Gen. Edward Ord's army intent on destroying the bridges on the Southside Railroad. Their major target was High Bridge, iron and wood spans built on twenty-one brick piers standing 126 feet above the valley, which carried the railroad over the Appomattox River east of Farmville. Lee's cavalry led by Fitzhugh Lee and Tom Rosser in a savage fight killed, wounded, or captured the entire Federal contingent of 900.

The morning of April 7 Robert E. Lee anxiously awaited word of the safe crossing of the Sailor's Creek survivors at High Bridge even as Longstreet's veterans who had marched from Rice's Station to Farmville were beginning to draw rations from the boxcars that had arrived from Lynchburg. A new crisis soon developed, however. Mahone, after covering the river crossing of the Sailor's Creek survivors, left the area without overseeing destruction of the railroad and wagon bridges. By the time the engineers secured his permission to torch the vital bridges, Humphreys's II Corps appeared on the river's south bank. The railroad bridge was soon engulfed in flames and four of the twenty-one spans destroyed, but the adjacent wagon bridge, made of hardwood, caught fire slowly and the Federals, in an operation similar to that at Remagen in March 1945, put out the fire and crossed the bridge. Despite Mahone's efforts to return and counterattack with his division, the Federals had a foothold on the west side of the river and a clear approach to Farmville, disrupting Lee's plans to allow his tired and hungry soldiers to rest and ration themselves there.

The Confederates next formed a line of battle at Cumberland Church, north of the Appomattox after crossing and destroying the Farmville bridges. At Cumberland Church, Mahone held back Humphreys's advance, while George Crook's cavalry, who had forded the Appomattox upriver from Farmville, was turned back by Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry south of Cumberland Church. Though Lee avoided having his army cut off at Farmville, the results of the mistakes early in the day were grim. Few of the rations delivered to Farmville got in the hands of the Army of Northern Virginia soldiers. And they would have to make another night march in order to stay ahead of the Federals and reach the next place where rations could be had at Appomattox Station, thirty miles west.

U. S. Grant was in Farmville by the evening of April 7, watching some of his 80,000-man force hold a torchlight parade, as they marched through the town in pursuit of the fleeing Rebels. His plan was in place. The infantry corps of Humphreys and Wright would tail the Confederate column north of the Appomattox, while Sheridan's cavalry, followed closely by the infantry of Ord and Charles Griffin, raced ahead along the railroad and captured Appomattox Station. The Federals would then block the route of Lee's army south, toward Gen. Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina, or west toward Lynchburg. It was at Farmville that Grant composed and sent between the lines his first request for the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia.

The evening of April 7 Grant's first surrender message reached Lee at Cumberland Church under a flag of truce. Lee composed and sent a message to Grant asking under what terms a discussion might occur. The next day the Rebels continued to slog toward Lynchburg, though their march was relatively quiet. Increased straggling and exhaustion of the soldiers decreased the ranks faster than the skirmishing around Farmville had the previous day. Though relatively close to the gray cavalry trailing the corps of Maj. Gen. John B. Gordon, in the lead, and Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, the Federals did not attack the column on April 8. Instead, they advanced on both sides of the Appomattox River toward the same goal as the Confederates, Appomattox Station.

Though Grant's reply to Lee's April 7 letter offered terms much more liberal than one would assume were in line with his "unconditional surrender" reputation, Lee's letter rejected the notion of surrender. Grant was unwilling to accept Lee's terms for a "restoration of peace" and negotiations broke down for the moment. The Southern leader was holding open the possibility of beating the Federals to the depot or breaking through their lines if he didn't.

As evening set in, Lee and the lead elements of Gordon's corps approached Appomattox Court House from the northeast. Appomattox Station was another three miles to the southwest. As the sun began to set, the first option Lee had considered no longer existed—Union campfires southwest of Appomattox Court House showed the Federals had won the race. Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan's cavalry had captured four Confederate supply trains at Appomattox Station earlier in the day. In a meeting with his top lieutenants Lee determined the only alternative to surrender would be a breakout attempt by the smaller Confederate force.

On Palm Sunday morning, April 9, the exhausted soldiers of Gordon's Corps and Maj. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry attempted to break through Sheridan's troopers blocking the road west of Appomattox Court House. But the shrill Rebel yells that marked this charge would be the last for the Army of Northern Virginia soldiers. Longstreet, pressed by Maj. Gen. Andrew A. Humphreys's II Corps coming from the northeast, could offer no assistance. Federal cavalry flanked the infantry, preventing all but the Rebel cavalry from breaking out and making its way west to Lynchburg. All but surrounded by Union troops, Lee rejected the idea put forth by some of his officers that the army take to the hills to fight as guerrillas. He sent a message to Grant to request a meeting for the purpose of surrendering his army. Flags of truce gradually brought the fighting to a halt.

That same afternoon, April 9, 1865, Lee and Grant met in the parlor of Wilmer McLean's brick home in Appomattox Court House. McLean had brought his family to Appomattox County after the armies of blue and gray had overrun, for the second time, his farm west of McLean's Ford crossing Bull Run following the Second Battle of Manassas. Lee and a staff officer arrived first. Grant, who had received Lee's request for the meeting while on his roundabout ride to the front, arrived thirty minutes later accompanied by staff and several general officers. After introductions and Grant remarking about an encounter with Lee in the Mexican War, the two great generals sat down to work out the terms of surrender. The terms Grant was offering were substantially the same as those he previously offered in his messages to Lee.

As the Army of Northern Virginia commander read the document, Grant looked for a reaction from Lee. He wrote later, "What General Lee's feelings were I do not know, as he was a man of much dignity, with an impassable face ... it was impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the end had finally come, or felt sad over the result and was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings they were entirely concealed from my observation; but my own feelings, which had been quite jubilant on the receipt of his letter, were sad and depressed. I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though the cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought."

After some minor changes, particularly one in which Grant allowed those in the army who owned horses or mules to be allowed to leave with them, Col. Ely Parker—a Seneca chief and member of Grant's staff—drafted a final agreement that was signed by Grant and Lee. Grant then ordered 25,000 rations for the Confederates—for this and the concession on the horses and mules Lee expressed his appreciation. The two men then shook hands and departed separately. Souvenir hunters snapped up most of McLean's furnishings as Lee rode back to his headquarters camp, surrounded by Southern soldiers who showed only their love for him for the difficult decision he had had to make.

The details of signing paroles for the more than 28,000 Confederates and the surrendering of arms were arranged by three senior officers from each army. Brig. Gen. Joshua L. Chamberlain was given the honor of formally receiving the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia's infantry. Grant did not wait at Appomattox Court House for the formal surrender; after a short meeting with Lee on Monday—April 10—he left for City Point en route to Washington to begin the process of winding down the war effort on behalf of the Union armies then costing the U.S. government $4 million each day. After delivering a stirring farewell address to his men, Lee remained in his headquarters tent through Wednesday April 12, but did not attend the day's formal surrendering of arms ceremony. That day he departed for Richmond.

On April 12, the Federal army marched into the "surrender triangle" at Appomattox Court House and formed ranks facing each other alongside the Lynchburg Stage Road. Shortly, the tattered but proud gray soldiers passed between the solemn lines of blue soldiers, stacked their arms and furled their flags. The respect given by the Federal officers and soldiers to their defeated foes was appreciated by the Southerners. Brig. Gen. E. Porter Alexander, artillery commander for the Army of Northern Virginia's I Corps, wrote later, "Grant's policy of conciliation was followed by everyone in his army, even to the teamsters along the roads . . . [after the surrender], in riding forty miles through the troops and trains of the Federal army, I met with not a single word or look which did not seem inspired with kind feeling and a disposition to spare us all the mortification possible. I think no one who was not at that surrender can fully appreciate the calamity wrought to the South by the assassination of President Lincoln. For Wilkes Booth slew also the kindly and generous sentiment which already inspired the army, and which would doubtless soon have pervaded the whole country."

Lee's Last Stand On April 6th, 1865, General Robert E. Lee and his Confederate Army of Northern Virginia lost one of the most devastating battles of the war. Along the banks of Sailor's Creek, Virginia, blue and gray dueled in the last major clash before Lee's surrender at Appomattox three days later. This is the saga of that tragic spring day where Lee exclaimed, "My God! Has the army dissolved?" as he watched his shattered legions flee the battlefield.

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