The Battle of Sailor's Creek was fought on April 6, 1865, near Farmville, Virginia, as part of the Appomattox Campaign, near the end of the American Civil War. It was the last major engagement between the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert E. Lee, and the Army of the Potomac, under the overall direction of Union General-in-Chief Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant.
After abandoning Petersburg, the exhausted and starving Confederates headed west, hoping to re-supply at Danville or Lynchburg, before joining General Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina. But the stronger Union army kept pace with them, exploiting the rough terrain full of creeks and high bluffs, where the Confederates' long wagon trains were highly vulnerable. The two small bridges over Sailor's Creek and Little Sailor's Creek caused a bottleneck that further delayed the Confederates' attempt to escape. After some desperate hand-to-hand fighting, about a quarter of the remaining effective soldiers of the Confederate force were lost, including several generals. Witnessing the surrender from a nearby bluff, Lee made his famous despairing remark to Major General William Mahone, "My God, has the army dissolved?", to which Mahone replied, "No, General, here are troops ready to do their duty."
The battle is sometimes referenced under its old spelling as Sayler's Creek.
The Appomattox Campaign before the Battle of Sailor's Creek showed the increasingly desperate circumstances of the Rebel forces leading into the battle. Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant's Union Army (Army of the Potomac, Army of the James, Army of the Shenandoah) broke the Confederate Army defenses of Petersburg, Virginia at the Battle of Five Forks on April 1 and the Third Battle of Petersburg on April 2. A Union division under the command of Brigadier General Nelson A. Miles also broke up the last defense of the South Side Railroad on the afternoon of April 2, cutting off that railroad as a supply line or route of retreat for the Confederates. General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia evacuated Petersburg and the Confederate capital of Richmond on the night of April 2–3 and began a retreat in hopes of linking up with General Joseph E. Johnston's army confronting the Union army group commanded by General William Tecumseh Sherman in North Carolina.
Most of Lee's army marched west on roads north of the Appomattox River. On April 3, south of the Appomattox River, Union Army cavalry under Colonel (Brevet Brigadier General) William Wells' brigade of Brigadier General (Brevet Major General) George Armstrong Custer's division pursued and engaged units of the fleeing Confederate cavalry rear guard under Brigadier General William Paul Roberts at Namozine Creek and Brigadier General Rufus Barringer of W.H.F. Lee's division and the overall command of Major General Fitzhugh Lee at the Battle of Namozine Church. Barringer's Confederate cavalry had bought enough time for Major General Bushrod Johnson's infantry division to pass nearby Namozine Church. When Johnson approached Namozine Church with his infantry division, Custer's men were forced to retire, allowing the Confederate forces to proceed across Deep Creek, an Appomattox River tributary. After dark, however, Wells's brigade continued to attack Fitzhugh Lee's force along Deep Creek but were finally held off by Bushrod Johnson's infantry at Sweathouse Creek. Brigadier General Barringer and many of his men were captured when Major General Philip Sheridan's scouts who were wearing gray uniforms led Barringer and his remaining men into a trap. The number of Confederate killed and wounded are unknown except that Bushrod Johnson reported 15 wounded. 350 Confederates were captured. The Union lost 95 killed and wounded at Namozine Creek, Namozine Church and Sweathouse Creek on April 3.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
This page covers Sailor's Creek — Ewell's Corps Capture (April 6, 1865). A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Wikipedia source.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the US, drawing on NRHP records, battlefield archives, census history and geological data to tell the full story of a place.