The Appomattox campaign was a series of American Civil War battles fought March 29 – April 9, 1865, in Virginia that concluded with the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia to forces of the Union Army (Army of the Potomac, Army of the James and Army of the Shenandoah) under the overall command of Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, marking the effective end of the war.
As the Richmond–Petersburg campaign (also known as the siege of Petersburg) ended, Lee's army was outnumbered and exhausted from a winter of trench warfare over an approximately front,Historian Russell Weigley states that Lee was defending over of line after the Battle of Hatcher's Run. Lee had the interior line. Weigley, 2000, p. 432. numerous battles, disease, hunger and desertion.Wyrick, William. The Confederate Attack and Union Defense of Fort Stedman: March 25, 1865. Chapter 4 in Bearss, Edward C. with Bruce Suderow. The Petersburg Campaign: The Western Front Battles. Savas Beattie: El Dorado Hills, CA, 2014. . pp. 241, 245. Grant's well-equipped and well-fed army was growing in strength. On March 29, 1865, the Union Army began an offensive that stretched and broke the Confederate defenses southwest of Petersburg and cut their supply lines to Petersburg and the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Union victories at the Battle of Five Forks on April 1, 1865, and the Third Battle of Petersburg, often called the Breakthrough at Petersburg, on April 2, 1865, opened Petersburg and Richmond to imminent capture. Lee ordered the evacuation of Confederate forces from both Petersburg and Richmond on the night of April 2–3 before Grant's army could cut off any escape. Confederate government leaders also fled west from Richmond that night.
The Confederates marched west, heading toward Lynchburg, Virginia, as an alternative capital. Lee planned to resupply his army at one of those cities and march southwest into North Carolina where he could unite his army with the Confederate army commanded by General Joseph E. Johnston. Grant's Union Army pursued Lee's fleeing Confederates relentlessly. During the next week, the Union troops fought a series of battles with Confederate units, cut off or destroyed Confederate supplies and blocked their paths to the south and ultimately to the west. On April 6, 1865, the Confederate Army suffered a significant defeat at the Battle of Sailor's Creek, Virginia, where they lost about 7,700 men killed or captured and an unknown number wounded. Nonetheless, Lee continued to move the remainder of his battered army to the west. Soon cornered, short of food and supplies and outnumbered, Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant on April 9, 1865, at the McLean House near the county courthouse in the small central Virginia village of Appomattox Court House.
Background
Military situation
After the Overland Campaign, on June 15–18, 1864, two Union Army corps failed to seize Petersburg from a small force of Confederate defenders at the Second Battle of Petersburg, also known as Grant's first offensive at Petersburg.Some historians suggest that the First Battle of Petersburg should be considered the first offensive. By June 18, the Army of Northern Virginia reinforced the Confederate defenders, ending the possibility of a quick Union victory.Hess, Earl J. In the Trenches at Petersburg: Field Fortifications & Confederate Defeat. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. . pp. 18–37. At the start of the campaign, the Union forces could pin down most of the Army of Northern Virginia to their trenches and fortifications running from northeast of Richmond to southwest of Petersburg but was not strong or large enough to surround the Confederate Army or to cut all supply routes to Petersburg and Richmond or to turn the Confederate Army out of its defenses.The Richmond–Petersburg campaign was not a "siege" as usually defined because the Confederate Army was never surrounded. The smaller Confederate Army was strong enough to maintain their defenses and to detach some units for independent operations but not large enough to send a field army out to fight a major battle with the Union force that might compel a retreat.Weigley, Russell F. A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861–1865. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000. . p. 336.Stoker, Donald. The Grand Design: Strategy and the U.S. Civil War. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. . pp. 367, 372–373, 384.Hattaway, Herman, and Archer Jones. How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983. . p. 593.
Grant's strategy Grant's strategy was to destroy or cut off sources of supply and sever supply lines to Petersburg and Richmond, which also would result in extending to the breaking point the defensive lines of the outnumbered and declining Confederate force.Beringer, Richard E., Herman Hattaway, Archer Jones, and William N. Still, Jr. Why the South Lost the Civil War. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986. . pp. 331–332.Trudeau, Noah Andre. The Last Citadel: Petersburg, Virginia, June 1864 – April 1865. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991. . p. 18. In pursuit of these objectives, Grant launched five more offensives at Petersburg during the remaining months of 1864, another in February 1865, and two more at the end of March and beginning of April 1865.Historian Earl J. Hess considers the Union Army offensive at the end of March and beginning of April 1865, which brought success with the crushing of the extended Confederate right flank at the Battle of Five Forks on April 1, 1865, as the eighth offensive. Hess, 2009, pp. 260–263. Hess characterizes the Third Battle of Petersburg or Breakthrough at Petersburg on April 2, 1865, as Grant's ninth offensive. Hess, 2009, p. 264.Hess, 2009, pp. 18–37.Sommers, Richard J. Richmond Redeemed: The Siege at Petersburg. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981. . p. 2. During the fall of 1864 and the winter of 1864–1865, Grant slowly extended the Union Army line south of Petersburg westward. Lee extended the Confederate line to match the Union moves, but the defenders were stretched increasingly thin.Weigley, 2000, p. 432.
Battle of Hatcher's Run
On February 5, 1865, Grant sent a large force of cavalry and the V Corps of infantry toward Dinwiddie Court House and Stony Creek Station to interrupt the Confederate's Boydton Plank Road supply route and capture large numbers of wagons with supplies reported to be en route.Bearss, Edward C. with Bruce Suderow. The Petersburg Campaign: The Western Front Battles. Savas Beattie: El Dorado Hills, CA, 2014. . pp. 166–167. The raid on the supply route and supplies accomplished little as only 18 wagons were found on the road.Bearss, 2014, p. 174. A significant result of the offensive was the extension of the Union line to the west from Fort Sampson to the Vaughan Road crossing of Hatcher's Run and captured two key road crossings of Hatcher's Run near Armstrong's Mill.Hess, 2009, pp. 231–232. The action of the II Corps, which was promptly joined by the V Corps, in moving to protect the attacking force and to defend their advanced positions, resulted in the extension of the lines. Fighting continued in bad weather on February 6 and 7 after which the Union force built trenches and fortifications to hold the extended line.Bearss, 2014, p. 232. The Confederates matched the Union works by extending their Boydton Plank Road Line to the south and their White Oak Road line to the west.Hess, 2009, p. 234. With the additions, the lines of the armies south of Petersburg extended from the Appomattox River to Hatcher's Run.Hess, 2009, p. 233.
Lee plans to withdraw from Petersburg After the Battle of Hatcher's Run, Lee knew his army lacked the number of men needed to continue extension of his line and he realized Grant would continue to press them to do just that.Lee had to use two of his three reserve units to hold the extended line. Bearss, 2014, p. 239.Shelby Foote states that the Confederate line was extended to , "exclusive of recurrent jogs and doublings", and that his strength was reduced to 46,398 men "present for duty." Foote, 1974, p. 785.Weigley, 2000, p. 433.Calkins, Chris. The Appomattox Campaign, March 29 – April 9, 1865. Conshohocken, PA: Combined Books, 1997. . p. 10Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative. Vol. 3, Red River to Appomattox. New York: Random House, 1974. . p. 785. On February 22, 1865, Lee advised Confederate States Secretary of War John C. Breckinridge that he expected Grant to "draw out his left, with the intent of enveloping me." He told Breckinridge and Lieutenant General James Longstreet that supplies should be collected at Burkeville, Virginia, in preparation for the army to move west.Calkins,1997, pp. 11–12. Lee wanted to move when local roads became passable as spring rains decreased and before Union reinforcements from Sheridan's cavalry from the Shenandoah Valley, recent new recruits for Grant's force, and possibly even men from Major General William T. Sherman's armies already operating in North Carolina, could arrive at Petersburg.Trudeau, 1991, pp. 324–325.Greene, A. Wilson. The Final Battles of the Petersburg Campaign: Breaking the Backbone of the Rebellion. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2008. . p. 111Hattaway, 1983, pp. 669–671.
In early March, 1865, Lee decided that his army must break out of the Richmond and Petersburg lines, obtain food and supplies at Danville, Virginia, or Lynchburg, Virginia, and join General Joseph E. Johnston's force opposing Major General Sherman's Union army.Greene, 2008, p. 154.Calkins, 1997, pp. 14, 16.Hess, 2009, p. 253.Longacre, Edward G. The Cavalry at Appomattox: A Tactical Study of Mounted Operations During the Civil War's Climactic Campaign, March 27 – April 9, 1865. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003. . p. 39.
After discussing the situation with Major General John B. Gordon on March 4, 1865, Lee approved Gordon's proposal to attempt to capture or break a portion of the Union lines.Wyrick, 2014, p. 244. The expected result of a successful attack would be to threaten or damage Grant's base and supply lines, compel Grant to shorten his line from the western end and to delay his pursuit of any Confederate force's withdrawal. Then, Lee could shorten his line and send part of his army to help Johnston in North Carolina.Calkins,1997, p. 11. In the alternative, Lee could move his entire army to help take on Sherman first and, if successful, turn the combined Confederate force back against Grant.Lee met with Confederate President Jefferson Davis on March 4, 1865, to urge him to negotiate peace with the Union government. Davis declined, noting the failure of a recent peace effort at the Hampton Roads Conference. He also did not want to abandon Richmond. This meeting confirmed to Lee that the Confederate Army must fight. Wyrick, 2014, p. 245.Trudeau, 1991, pp. 337–352.Greene, 2008, p. 108.Davis, William C. An Honorable Defeat: The Last Days of the Confederate Government. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2001. . p. 49. On March 22, 1865, Gordon told Lee he had determined that the best place to attack would be at Fort Stedman, east of Petersburg and south of the Appomattox River where the armies' lines were only about 200 yards apart. Lee approved the planned attack.Wyrick, 2014, p. 247.
March 24, 1865: Grant's orders