Lewis's Farm

On March 29, 1865, near the close of the American Civil War, fighting broke out at Lewis's Farm in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, a clash also known by the names Quaker Road, Military Road, and Gravelly Run. This engagement opened a series of decisive confrontations that brought the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, commonly called the Siege of Petersburg, to its conclusion. Grant's Union forces succeeded in pushing Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia out of its fortified positions guarding both Petersburg and Richmond, the Confederate capital. Historians, along with the National Park Service, generally point to Lewis's Farm as the first action of the Appomattox Campaign, the sequence of events culminating in Lee's surrender on April 9, 1865.

That day began with two corps of the Army of the Potomac, Warren's V Corps and Humphreys's II Corps, pushing southwest around the Union position below Petersburg in an effort to reach the far edge of Confederate lines. Defending that stretch was Anderson's Fourth Corps, reduced at this point to a single division under Bushrod Johnson.

Chamberlain's brigade, leading Warren's advance up the Quaker Road toward Confederate positions, ran into three of Johnson's brigades at the Lewis farm. After artillery support arrived in the form of a four-gun battery, and once two sizable regiments from Gregory's brigade came up to relieve the exhausted attackers, Union soldiers finally pushed the Confederates back into their entrenchments and seized a key crossroads. Chamberlain himself was wounded during the fight and came close to being taken prisoner. Decades afterward, in recognition of his conduct that day, Pearson received the Medal of Honor, though the award did not come until 32 years later.

Losses on both sides were roughly comparable, with 381 Union casualties against 371 for the Confederates. Despite this near parity, Warren's men finished the day holding a vital piece of ground where the Boydton Plank Road met the Quaker Road. Not long after, Sheridan's cavalry, operating independently of the Army of the Potomac under the banner of the Army of the Shenandoah, took possession of Dinwiddie Court House, cutting the Boydton Plank Road in the process. These gains left Union troops positioned dangerously close to the Confederate flank and within striking distance of Five Forks, an essential junction, as well as the two rail lines still linking Petersburg and Richmond to the outside world.

Confederate forces abandoned both Petersburg and Richmond on April 2 and 3, retreating westward. What followed was a string of reverses and skirmishes, punctuated by a major Confederate loss at Sailor's Creek on April 6. The campaign reached its end when Lee surrendered to Grant's advancing army on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House, roughly 25 miles (40 km) from Lynchburg, Virginia. The remaining Confederate forces laid down their arms over the following weeks, and by the close of June 1865 the Confederacy itself had ceased to exist.

Background

Between June 15 and 18, 1864, two Union Army corps slipped away from the deadlocked lines north of Richmond, crossing the James River to reach ground south of Petersburg, Virginia, without Confederate detection. This force linked up with the Union Army of the James at Petersburg, yet the combined effort could not wrest the city from its modest garrison of Confederate defenders during the Second Battle of Petersburg. By June 18, 1864, reinforcements from the Army of Northern Virginia had bolstered those defenders, marking the start of a 292-day ordeal known as the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, or the Siege of Petersburg.

Grant found himself forced into a war of attrition fought from trenches, aiming to grind down the Confederate army, sever its supply routes into Petersburg and Richmond, and stretch the thinning Confederate lines past their limits.

Throughout the remainder of 1864 and into early 1865, Grant gradually shifted his forces westward along the Union line south of Petersburg through six additional offensives, typically paired with simultaneous pressure near the Richmond defenses. Confederate lines grew longer in response, spreading their already outnumbered and shrinking army even thinner. Lee understood that with men and supplies growing scarce, his forces could not hold Petersburg and Richmond forever against a swelling Union presence, particularly once fresh Union recruits finished training, Sheridan's cavalry divisions arrived from the Shenandoah Valley, and possibly Sherman's armies, already active in North Carolina, joined the fight once spring rains subsided and roads firmed up.

The Battle of Hatcher's Run, fought February 5 through 7, 1865, stretched the lines another 4 miles, leaving Lee with scant reserves once he had staffed the new defensive positions. He recognized that some portion, or perhaps his entire army, would need to abandon the Richmond and Petersburg defenses, resupply through Danville or possibly Lynchburg, Virginia, and merge with Johnston's force facing Sherman. Should the Confederates manage a swift victory over Sherman, they could then wheel back to confront Grant before his army combined with Sherman's remaining troops. Lee set preparations in motion for this move and shared his reasoning and plans with Davis and Breckinridge.

Gordon proposed striking the Union lines along a narrow front near Fort Stedman, situated east of Petersburg south of the Appomattox River, with the goal of endangering the Union supply base at City Point and forcing Grant to pull his lines inward, even temporarily. Lee agreed to the plan. Success might grant Lee both shortened lines and a head start on shifting his army westward toward North Carolina.

Gordon's Confederates struck Fort Stedman in a surprise assault before dawn on March 25, 1865, achieving early gains, but Union forces counterattacked and reclaimed the fort during the Battle of Fort Stedman. The Confederates were pushed back to their original lines, losing their forward picket positions, including much of its western stretch, that afternoon in what became the Battle of Jones's Farm. Roughly 4,000 Confederate casualties resulted, a toll the army could scarcely bear. This defeat convinced Lee that splitting off part of his force while still defending Petersburg and Richmond was no longer feasible. He also anticipated that Grant would soon target the last Confederate supply arteries feeding Petersburg, the Southside Railroad and Boydton Plank Road, both lying beyond his current defensive perimeter.

Grant, unshaken by the fighting at Fort Stedman, had already issued orders on March 24, 1865, calling for a new offensive to launch on March 29. His plan called for Sheridan's cavalry to sever the two remaining functional rail lines, the Southside Railroad and the Richmond and Danville Railroad, while infantry attempted to dislodge the Confederates from their positions. On March 28, Grant instructed Sheridan to swing his troops around the Confederate right flank, engaging the enemy with inf

Battle

Chamberlain split his forces to strike from two directions at once. He posted the 198th Pennsylvania Infantry on the right of the road, using it as a diversion to draw Confederate fire, while he personally guided the 185th New York Volunteer Infantry over Gravelly Run to hit the Confederate right flank, where the fighting turned to close, hand-to-hand combat. Both regiments were unusually large for the era, each carrying roughly 1,000 officers and men. Once the New Yorkers had made their attack, the remainder of Chamberlain's brigade forded the stream as well. Facing this pressure, the Confederates fell back about a mile north along the Quaker Road to open ground near the Lewis farmhouse. They briefly held near the house before withdrawing into nearby woods, where fresh Confederate troops joined them behind prepared breastworks. From this position they threw back the advancing Union skirmish line, though not before roughly 100 of their own men were taken prisoner. Chamberlain then pushed his remaining troops forward, prompting the Confederates who had ventured out to meet the skirmishers to pull back once more into their