Sailor's Creek

Near Farmville, Virginia, on April 6, 1865, Union and Confederate forces clashed in what became known as the fight at Sailor's Creek, one of the closing episodes of the Appomattox Campaign as the Civil War neared its end. This clash marked the final large scale confrontation between Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac, which Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant oversaw as Union General-in-Chief.

Having pulled out of Petersburg, Lee's famished and worn down troops pushed westward, aiming to gather supplies at either Danville or Lynchburg before linking up with General Joseph E. Johnston's force in North Carolina. Union pursuers, possessing greater strength, managed to stay right on their heels, taking advantage of the difficult landscape, marked by streams and steep bluffs, that left the Confederates' extended supply wagons exposed and vulnerable. A pair of narrow bridges spanning Sailor's Creek and Little Sailor's Creek created a chokepoint, slowing the Confederates even further as they tried to break away. Brutal close quarters combat followed, and by its end roughly one in four of the Confederacy's remaining able soldiers had been killed, wounded, or captured, a toll that included multiple generals. From a bluff overlooking the scene, Lee watched the surrender unfold and turned to Major General William Mahone with a now well known cry of despair, asking whether the army had dissolved. Mahone answered that no, troops remained who stood ready to fulfill their duty.

This engagement also appears at times under an older spelling, rendered as Sayler's Creek.

Background

The days preceding the fighting at Sailor's Creek revealed just how dire things had become for Confederate forces during the Appomattox Campaign. Grant, leading the combined Union forces of the Army of the Potomac, the Army of the James, and the Army of the Shenandoah, shattered the Confederate defensive lines protecting Petersburg through victories at Five Forks on April 1 and the Third Battle of Petersburg the following day. That same afternoon of April 2, a Union division led by Brigadier General Nelson A. Miles smashed through the final defenses guarding the South Side Railroad, severing this vital supply and escape route for the Confederates. Overnight between April 2 and 3, Lee pulled his Army of Northern Virginia out of both Petersburg and Richmond, launching a retreat aimed at joining forces with Johnston, whose army was then facing Sherman's Union command in North Carolina.

The bulk of Lee's forces headed westward along roads situated north of the Appomattox River. South of the river on April 3, Union cavalry from Colonel William Wells's brigade, part of Custer's division, chased down and clashed with Confederate rear guard cavalry commanded by Brigadier General William Paul Roberts near Namozine Creek, then engaged Brigadier General Rufus Barringer's forces from W.H.F. Lee's division, under the overall direction of Fitzhugh Lee, at what became known as the Battle of Namozine Church. Barringer's cavalry managed to buy sufficient time for Bushrod Johnson's infantry division to move past the church itself. Custer's troops were compelled to fall back once Johnson's infantry appeared near Namozine Church, clearing the way for Confederate forces to cross Deep Creek, a tributary feeding into the Appomattox. Wells's brigade nonetheless kept pressing Fitzhugh Lee's men along Deep Creek after darkness fell, though Bushrod Johnson's infantry ultimately stopped them at Sweathouse Creek. Barringer himself, along with a considerable number of his men, fell into Union hands after scouts working for Sheridan, disguised in gray, lured them into an ambush. While Confederate losses in killed and wounded went largely unrecorded, Johnson did note fifteen wounded among his men. Some 350 Confederates were taken prisoner that day. Union casualties across the three engagements at Namozine Creek, Namozine Church, and Sweathouse Creek totaled 95 killed and wounded.

By the close of April 3, the Confederate army had covered roughly 21 miles heading west. Reaching Amelia Court House, the meeting point Lee had designated, required every Confederate command except those led by Anderson and Fitzhugh Lee to ford the Appomattox River, which bends sharply northward not far from where the army had camped that night. Flooding and washed-out bridges forced most of the army onto a single muddy roadway or lengthy detours as they pushed south across the river on April 4, hampering their progress toward the rendezvous.

By the evening of April 3, Longstreet's troops had largely made it across the Appomattox at Goode's Bridge, while Gordon's corps remained on the eastern side. Amelia Court House lay 8.5 miles further west. Ewell's men found the Genito Bridge crossing impossible since the pontoon bridge meant to be there had never arrived. They marched south instead and crossed via a Richmond and Danville Railroad bridge, laying planks across it for the purpose, then camped about a mile west of that crossing on April 4. Meanwhile Gordon's corps waited at Scott's Shop, five miles east of Amelia Court House, for Ewell's men to close the gap. Mahone's troops reached Goode's Bridge but held off entering Amelia Court House until word arrived that the Richmond contingent had made it there.

Along Bevill's Bridge Road, on the march toward Amelia Court House, Anderson had the remaining troops from Pickett's and Bushrod Johnson's divisions dig in and form a defensive line at

Initial movements

As the Confederate columns pushed west from Amelia Springs, their formation grew thin and strung out, and the advance stalled where crossings over Sailor's Creek and Little Sailor's Creek forced them through narrow bottlenecks, compounded by steep bluffs rising beyond the water that the men still had to climb.

Lee set his army marching on the night of April 5 into April 6. Leading the way was Longstreet, commanding the merged First and Third Corps, with Richard Anderson's two divisions behind him, then Richard Ewell's Reserve corps made up of troops pulled from the Richmond garrison, the army's main wagon train, and finally John Gordon's Second Corps bringing up the rear. Longstreet guided his men through Amelia Springs and onto the Deatonville road, aiming for Rice's Station on the South Side Railroad.

From Amelia Court House, Lee's corps had traveled on separate roads running side by side, but once they converged at Deatonville, every soldier and wagon would be forced onto a single narrow route heading straight to Rice's Station, a bottleneck that left them exposed. The alternative, the Jamestown Road, branched off north from Deatonville and only reached Rice's Station by a long, indirect loop.

Longstreet's corps departed Amelia Court House ahead of the others and began arriving at Rice's Station around sunrise. Lee caught up with him later that morning. Together they resolved to hold Rice's Station, waiting there for the rest of the army while also defending the railroad depot against the Union XXIV Corps, which had already seized Burkeville Junction. At first light, Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry pulled out of Amelia Springs and rode to Rice's Station, uniting there with Longstreet's force.

William Mahone, a major general leading a division from the old Third Corps now folded into Longstreet's command, reached Deatonville before daylight broke on April 6. His men took the right fork there and proceeded toward Rice's Station without obstruction, though the infantry corps trailing behind them would not enjoy the same fortune.

Behind Mahone's division marched the corps of Anderson, Ewell, and Gordon, one after another. When Fitzhugh Lee rode off with the bulk of the cavalry, Rooney Lee's cavalry division remained behind instead, positioned to support Gordon's corps as it guarded the army's rear. Gordon's final units had still not reached Amelia Springs even as Longstreet's foremost men were already arriving at Rice's Station.

Meanwhile the wagon trains traveled along the army's right flank, making for a crossing point at Perkinson's mill where Sailor's Creek meets the Appomattox River. The soldiers themselves intended to cross the river roughly two miles farther upstream, along the Rice's Station road. Ewell's corps lingered at Amelia Springs until two in the afternoon so it could escort the wagons, though once underway it pressed forward and closed the gap with Anderson's men ahead.

About a mile beyond Deatonville, the road toward Rice's Station dipped into marshy ground near Sandy Creek. Two miles further stood Holt's Corner, site of some skirmishing. From there, another mile and a quarter past the Hillsman House brought travelers to Sailor's Creek itself, with a steep bluff rising on its far bank. Half a mile beyond that bluff lay another crossroads near the farm of James N. Marshall. Both branches of Sailor's Creek had carved deep ravines into the land. General Humphreys characterized the terrain as broken, a mix of woods thick with undergrowth and swampy stretches interspersed with open fields.

Sheridan chose not to send his cavalry alongside Meade's infantry, convinced instead that Lee was racing west in an attempt to escape the Union Army entirely. He ordered his horsemen onto a road running parallel to, and south of, Lee's marching route, hoping to cut the Confederates off. Rather than directing the cavalry toward Amelia Court House with the infantry, Sheridan pushed them west along the Deatonville-Rice's Station Road, with Crook's division out front and Merritt's two divisions, led by Devin and Custer, following in support.

Naming the battle

The stream feeding into the Appomattox River carries the official designation Sayler's Creek today, a spelling the United States Board on Geographic Names fixed in 1959. That version now appears on topographic maps produced by the U.S. Geological Survey. A number of well known Civil War scholars have adopted it as well, among them James M. McPherson, Shelby Foote, Bruce Catton, and Douglas Southall Freeman. Chris M. Calkins, writing for the National Park Service, chose the same spelling for his 1980 study, Thirty-Six Hours Before Appomattox, and again when drafting the nomination that placed the battlefield on the National Register of Historic Places.

Yet Calkins later complicated this picture. In his 1997 book, The Appomattox Campaign, he pointed out that maps predating and contemporary with the war rendered the name as Sailors instead. He cited two examples: the Joshua Fry-Peter Jefferson map of Virginia from 1752 and the Michler survey maps of 1867, the latter preserved in the Official Records Atlas. Based on this evidence, Calkins concluded that Sailor's Creek is the more historically accurate name for the engagement.

Several organizations have followed his reasoning, including the American Battlefield Protection Program under the National Park Service Civil War Sites Advisory Commission, along with the Civil War Trust and Virginia's Department of Conservation and Recreation, all of whom favor "Sailor's Creek" in their materials.

Beyond this central naming dispute, the battle carries several alternate titles altogether: Little Sailor's Creek, Harper's Farm, Marshall's Cross Roads, Hillsman Farm, Double Bridges, and Lockett's Farm.