The fighting 223way to slip away through the lines and head
for North Carolina to join forces with
another retreating Confederate army there.
Before Lee could attempt such a
stratagem, his thinly manned lines snapped.
Fighting by Union cavalry around Dinwiddie
Court House on 31 March went well for
Confederate General George E. Pickett, but
to Lee's dismay Pickett fell back north to the
invaluable Five Forks intersection on the
White Oak Road. On 1 April, Pickett, ever
the dilettante, played host at a fish fry.
Generals Fitzhugh Lee and Tom Rosser
joined him at what became infamous as 'The
Shad Bake.' While the generals enjoyed the
respite from winter's short rations, Warren's
diligent V Corps crashed into the exposed
Confederate left and completely shattered it.
Instead of applauding Warren's coup,
Sheridan, commanding on the field, relieved
him from command and assumed the
mantle of the hero of Five Forks.
With Five Forks in Unionist hands, there
remained nothing to keep them from the
long-sought South Side Railroad. The next
morning Grant ordered attacks all along the
line and ended the siege of Petersburg.
Horatio Wright's VI Corps rolled through A.
P. Hill's troops almost at will. In a random
encounter in the woods, two Federal enlisted
men met Hill, who ranked behind only
Longstreet among Lee's subordinates,
accompanied only by a courier. After a
nervous exchange of challenges, one Yankee
fired a bullet that went through Hill's thumb
and into his heart.
Farther northeast, closer to Petersburg,
a tiny Confederate detachment held
desperately to Fort Gregg to buy time for Lee
to knit together a new line, and for the
Confederate government to evacuate
Richmond. Fort Gregg's defenders counted
only two Mississippi regiments, one section of
Louisiana artillery, and a handful of artillerists
pressed into service as infantry - perhaps
300 men in all. The entire fresh Federal
XXIV Corps attacked across an open field
against the small work. Although it seemed to
one witness that the Federal flags created 'a
solid line of bunting around the fort,' the
Southerners repulsed the first assault. Another
fell back in confusion, leaving a bloody wake
behind. Attacking Northerners wrote of
'withering fire' that 'mowed down our men
most unmercifully.' Finally the defenders
collapsed under an overwhelming assault
from all sides. They had shot more than
700 Federals. Only a handful of unwounded
Southerners survived to be captured.
The sacrificial stand in Fort Gregg bought
Lee time to protect Petersburg by means of a
hastily connected interior line, but that night
he had to abandon the city that for so long
had been a focus of military operations in
Virginia. For six days, 3-8 April 1865, Lee's
Army of Northern Virginia wove a weary trail
westward, hoping against hope to find a
means of escape. Federal detachments, both
infantry and cavalry, darted in and out of the
desperate Southern columns, snaring
prisoners and disrupting the retreat. Lee
hoped to find rations for his men near Amelia
Court House and Farmville; there were none.
On 6 April the last pitched battle of the war
in Virginia broke out on the banks of Sayler's
Creek. The fighting did not rage hot or long.
Federals closing in from three sides captured
about 8,000 men, including eight general
officers. Lee fought off pursuit at Cumberland
Church on 7 April and kept heading west.
On the night of 8 April, near Appomattox
Court House, Lee found the enemy directly
in his path as well as closing in from all
sides. The next day he surrendered to Grant.
The ceremony took place in the home of
Wilmer McLean. By remarkable coincidence,
four years earlier McLean had moved to
Appomattox from his farm along Bull Run,
to get away from the war that the Battle of
Manassas had brought to his property. Not
coincidentally, and entirely characteristically,
Grant did not even invite Meade to
the ceremony.
With four years of bloodshed at last
ended in Virginia, other Confederate forces
across the South faced imminent surrender.
It now remained for Northerners to
implement their hard-won victory, and for
Southerners to find the means of sustenance
in a destroyed country.