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 40 mi (64 km) front, numerous battles, disease, hunger and desertion. 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. By June 18, the Army of Northern Virginia reinforced the Confederate defenders, ending the possibility of a quick Union victory. 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 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.
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. 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. 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.
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. The raid on the supply route and supplies accomplished little as only 18 wagons were found on the road. A significant result of the offensive was the extension of the Union line 4 miles (6.4 km) 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. 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. 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. With the additions, the lines of the armies south of Petersburg extended 15 miles (24 km) from the Appomattox River to Hatcher's Run.
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. 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. 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.
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.
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. 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. 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. 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.
March 24, 1865: Grant's orders
On March 24, 1865, Grant issued orders for an offensive to begin on March 29, 1865. Grant planned for Major General Philip H. Sheridan's cavalry to cut the remaining open Confederate railroads, the Southside Railroad to Petersburg and the Richmond and Danville Railroad to Richmond, and for two infantry corps to protect Sheridan's move and to turn the Confederates out of the western end of their line. Grant's top priority was to force an engagement in order to defeat the Confederate army with the railroad raid as a secondary objective. Grant also intended that his forces block a Confederate retreat to the west. Grant ordered the Army of the Potomac's V Corps under Major General Gouverneur K. Warren and II Corps under Major General Andrew A. Humphreys to support Sheridan, mainly by outflanking the Confederates to prevent them from interfering with Sheridan's mission. Grant also initially ordered Warren's corps to seize Dinwiddie Court House, where they also could capture a segment of the Boydton Plank Road, a task later given to Sheridan. Grant ordered Major General Edward Ord, to quietly move units from the Army of the James to fill in the portion of the Petersburg line that the II Corps then occupied.
Battle of Fort Stedman
After Gordon's surprise attack on Fort Stedman in the pre-dawn hours of March 25, 1865, captured the fort, three adjacent batteries and over 500 men while killing and wounding about 500 more, Union forces of the IX Corps under Major General John G. Parke promptly counterattacked. They recaptured the fort and batteries, forced the Confederates to return to their lines and to give up their advance picket line and inflicted about 4,000 casualties, including about 1,000 captured, which the Confederates could ill afford. The United States National Park Service and some historians consider the Battle of Fort Stedman to have been the concluding battle of the siege of Petersburg.
In response to the Confederate attack on Fort Stedman, on the afternoon of March 25, at the Battle of Jones's Farm, Union forces of II Corps and VI Corps captured Confederate picket lines near Armstrong's Mill and extended the left end of the Union line about 0.25 miles (0.40 km) closer to the Confederate fortifications. This put the VI Corps which was holding this section of the line within easy striking distance, about 0.5 miles (0.80 km), of the Confederate line. After the Confederate defeats at Fort Stedman and Jones's Farm, Lee knew that Grant would soon move against the only remaining Confederate supply lines to Petersburg, the Southside Railroad and the Boydton Plank Road.
Meanwhile, on the night of March 25, Major General Philip Sheridan's cavalry arrived at Harrison's Landing on the north bank of the James River. Sheridan's force of about 10,000 troopers was minus a brigade detached to guard prisoners and nearly 3,000 men who were detached because of a lack of replacement horses for those which died or became disabled or unserviceable in the Shenandoah Valley campaign of 1864 and the return to Richmond.
Campaign prelude
The Confederate attack on Fort Stedman did not deter Grant from continuing with his plan of March 24 for an offensive to begin March 29.
March 26, 1865
On March 26, 1865, Lee held a council of war at which Lee decided that Major General Cadmus M. Wilcox's division must recapture a crucial elevated portion of their old picket line called McIlwaine's Hill. Also on that date, Lee wrote to Davis that he feared it would be impossible to prevent Sherman joining forces with Grant and that he did not think it prudent to maintain the Confederate army's current positions as Sherman came near to them. After the Fort Stedman defeat, Lee realized that he could not detach only a portion of his army to send to Johnston in North Carolina and still maintain the Richmond and Petersburg defenses.
On the same date, Sheridan's cavalry crossed the James River on a pontoon bridge at Deep Bottom in Henrico County, Virginia, 11 miles (18 km) southeast of Richmond. Sheridan went ahead of his men to meet Grant at his headquarters at Appomattox Manor, the Richard Eppes plantation at City Point, Virginia. Grant told Sheridan that Sheridan would continue to report directly to him, not to Major General George G. Meade as part of the Army of the Potomac. He also assured Sheridan that his force would participate in closing the war in the movements at Petersburg and that Grant gave him discretionary authority to go to North Carolina in his March 24 orders only in the event they were needed. In the afternoon, Grant and Sheridan accompanied President Lincoln on a cruise up the James River.
March 27, 1865: Action at McIlwaine's Hill
Before dawn on March 27, 1865, about 400 sharpshooters from four of Wilcox's brigades prepared to attack the new Union picket line on McIlwaine's Hill to recapture the line and prevent artillery from threatening important sections of the Confederate defenses. The Confederates approached within 40 yards (37 meters) of the Union line when rifle firing started and the surprised Union pickets were scattered. Then, three Union regiments arrived to reinforce their new picket line but also were driven back by artillery fire from the Confederate line. In the brief but spirited skirmish, the Confederates retook McIlwaine's Hill with few casualties, but this was of minor consequence since Grant's plans for the March 29 offensive did not include an attack along the VI Corps picket line.
March 27, 1865
Grant and Sherman began a two-day meeting with President Lincoln aboard the River Queen at City Point, Virginia. The meeting was mainly social with Lincoln also asking Sherman to tell him about his march through the Carolinas.
Sheridan went to Hancock Station on the morning of March 27, 1865, to organize his forces for the planned operation. Although delayed by a train derailment, Sheridan met with Grant and Sherman at City Point late on March 27 and on the morning of March 28 when he again opposed joining Sherman's forces in North Carolina despite some effort by Sherman to persuade him to take that course of action.
Meade issued orders to the Army of the Potomac in line with Grant's communication to him which would keep all but the mobile II corps and V corps in their lines despite Grant's assurance to Sheridan that he would support Sheridan with the whole army if a battle resulted from his movements. Meade also noted that the mobile infantry was to push the Confederates into their lines and prevent them from opposing Sheridan, which was at odds with Grant's priority to defeat the enemy in battle.