On the morning of April 2, 1865, the long siege around Petersburg finally broke. For nine months, Confederate General Robert E. Lee had held his lines against a Union army that outnumbered him nearly three to one, his men starving but unyielding. Now, a Union assault had smashed through, Richmond was burning, and Lee’s army was fracturing.
He had no choice but to retreat westward, hoping to link up with General Joseph Johnston’s forces in North Carolina. It was a desperate gamble, and Ulysses S. Grant knew it. After four years of bloodshed, he was not about to let Lee slip away.
Grant turned to his cavalry commander, Major General Philip Sheridan, and gave him blunt instructions: Do not let him escape. Cut off his retreat. Make escape impossible. Those orders set in motion the final chase of the Civil War, a week-long pursuit across muddy roads and swollen creeks that would bring the Army of Northern Virginia to its knees at Appomattox Courthouse.
The war had dragged on far longer than anyone imagined in 1861. What began as a conflict over states’ rights and slavery had become a cataclysm claiming over 600,000 lives. By 1864, the Confederacy was collapsing. Its currency was worthless, its ports blockaded, its farms stripped bare.
Lee had kept his army alive through sheer will, but Grant, appointed general-in-chief by Lincoln, brought a new philosophy: grinding attrition. By late March 1865, Grant had 125,000 men encircling Petersburg, while Lee could muster barely 35,000 ragged, half-starved soldiers. On March 29, Grant launched the opening moves of the Appomattox campaign. Sheridan, with 13,000 cavalry troopers, swung southwest toward Dinwiddie Courthouse, aiming to sever the South Side Railroad, Lee’s last supply lifeline.
The Confederates fought back hard. At Lewis’s Farm, Union infantry clashed with Confederate pickets in a sharp skirmish that cost hundreds on both sides. It was only a taste of what was to come. On March 31, at White Oak Road, Lee’s forces under George Pickett, the same Pickett of the doomed Gettysburg charge, tried to hold the line.
Rain turned the fields to muck. Sheridan’s cavalry probed and feinted, drawing fire. Then, at Dinwiddie, Confederate cavalry under Fitzhugh Lee and infantry slammed into Sheridan’s flanks. Bullets whistled through the pines, sabers clashed in the twilight.
Sheridan held barely, his men dismounting to fight as infantry. He wired Grant for infantry support, and Grant sent the V Corps under Gouverneur Warren. But Warren moved too slowly for Grant’s liking, a hesitation that would cost him his command. April 1 dawned clear, and Sheridan pounced.
At Five Forks, a dusty crossroads vital for controlling the railroads, Pickett’s division was caught off guard, with Pickett himself away at a shad bake. Sheridan’s cavalry swept in from the west, Warren’s infantry from the north. The rebels crumbled, losing over 2,000 men captured. Five Forks sealed Petersburg’s fate.
Lee wired Jefferson Davis in Richmond, advising that all preparation be made for leaving the capital that night. The Confederate government fled by train, setting fire to warehouses to deny supplies to the Yankees. On April 2, Grant ordered a general assault along the entire Petersburg line. At Fort Gregg, a small Confederate outpost held for hours against waves of blue coats, buying time for Lee’s retreat.
But by nightfall, Petersburg fell, and with it Richmond. Lee’s army streamed west along the Appomattox River, wagons creaking under what little they could salvage, the wounded moaning in the beds. They aimed for Amelia Courthouse, forty miles away, where supply trains were supposed to be waiting with rations. Lee’s plan was to resupply, then swing south to Danville and link with Johnston.
Grant was not having it. He unleashed his forces in parallel pursuit, infantry under George Meade marching straight west, Sheridan’s cavalry arcing south to block escape routes. “Press them without intermission,” Grant ordered. The race was on.
Lee’s men, many shoeless, trudged through the night, hunger gnawing at their bellies. Union troopers, better fed and mounted, closed the gap. On April 3, the first clashes of the chase erupted. At Namozine Church, Sheridan’s advance guard under George Custer ambushed a Confederate rearguard, capturing hundreds of prisoners.
Lee pushed on, reaching Amelia Courthouse on the 4th. But disaster struck. The supply trains had been misdirected, carrying ammunition and harnesses instead of food. Lee halted for a day to forage.
It was a fatal delay. While Lee scavenged, Sheridan raced ahead. On the 5th, his cavalry nipped at Lee’s flanks, capturing wagons and prisoners. Grant, riding with Meade’s column, urged speed.
“If we can keep up the pressure,” he told his staff, “Lee will have to surrender. ”
The climax came on April 6, along Sailor’s Creek. Lee’s army, strung out over miles, was vulnerable. The corps under Richard Ewell lagged behind, separated by the swollen creek.
Sheridan’s cavalry, reinforced by Horatio Wright’s VI Corps, struck hard. Union infantry charged with bayonets fixed. Ewell’s men fought fiercely but were outnumbered. Over 7,000 Confederates surrendered, including Ewell himself and six other generals, among them Custis Lee, Robert’s son.
When word reached Lee, he exclaimed, “My God, has the army dissolved? ” His aide replied, “No, General, but it is sorely pressed. ”
Lee’s army staggered on to Farmville, where some rations finally arrived. But Sheridan was already south, blocking the road to Danville.
April 7 brought more skirmishes at Cumberland Church. Lee’s rear guard under John B. Gordon held off attacks, but at a cost. Grant, sensing the end, sent his first surrender demand, noting that the result of the last week must convince Lee of the hopelessness of further resistance.
Lee replied coolly, asking what terms Grant would offer. Meanwhile, Sheridan pressed. On the night of April 8, at Appomattox Station, Custer’s brigade captured three supply trains meant for Lee, along with twenty-four cannon and two hundred wagons. “We’ve got them now!
” Custer whooped. Lee’s men, down to 28,000 effectives, many without weapons, camped nearby, unaware. On April 9, Lee tried one last push south, but Sheridan’s cavalry barred the way at Appomattox Courthouse. Gordon’s infantry attacked and briefly broke through, but Union reinforcements arrived.
Lee realized it was over. “There is nothing left for me to do but to go and see General Grant,” he told his staff, “and I would rather die a thousand deaths. ”
That afternoon, Palm Sunday, Lee rode out under a flag of truce to the parlor of Wilmer McLean’s house, a man who had moved from Manassas to escape the war, only to have it end in his front room. Grant arrived in a mud-spattered uniform, wearing a private’s blouse.
They shook hands. Lee, dignified and composed, asked for terms. Grant offered generous ones: officers would keep their side arms and horses, and men would be paroled and sent home, not to be disturbed as long as they obeyed the laws. No trials, no humiliations.
“This will do much toward conciliating our people,” Lee said. Grant later wrote that his own feelings were sad and depressed, that he felt anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly. Outside, as news spread, Union soldiers cheered, then fell silent at Grant’s order. “The war is over.
The rebels are our countrymen again. ” Lee’s men stacked arms, many weeping. Grant ordered rations sent to the starving Confederates, 25,000 meals. The surrender at Appomattox did not end the war outright.
Johnston held out until April 26, and other forces longer, but it broke the Confederacy’s back. Lincoln, assassinated days later, never saw full peace, but his vision endured. Grant’s chase proved that persistence, not brilliance alone, wins wars. Sheridan’s cavalry, following those final orders, turned the tide.
From that parlor in Virginia sprang reconciliation, victory without vengeance, an end that allowed a new beginning.