Appomattox Campaign

• General Robert E. LeeWhite Oak Road, Petersburg, Cumberland Church, Appomattox Court House
• Major General Fitzhugh LeeDinwiddie Court House, Namozine Church, Amelia Springs
• Major General George PickettDinwiddie Court House, Five Forks
• Major General Thomas RosserAmelia Springs, High Bridge
• Major General Bushrod R. JohnsonLewis's Farm
• Lieutenant General Richard AndersonWhite Oak Road
• Major General Henry HethSutherland's Station
• Major General Cadmus WilcoxSutherland's Station
• Lieutenant General James LongstreetRice's Station
• Major General William MahoneHigh Bridge
• Lieutenant General Richard S. EwellSailor's Creek
• Major General John B. GordonSailor's Creek
• Brigadier General Lindsay WalkerAppomattox Station

• Major General G.K. WarrenLewis's Farm, White Oak Road
• Major General Philip SheridanDinwiddie Court House, Five Forks, Sailor's Creek
• Lieutenant General Ulysses S. GrantPetersburg, Appomattox Court House
• Major General Nelson A. MilesSutherland's Station
• Major General George A. CusterNamozine Church, Appomattox Station
• Major General George CrookAmelia Springs
• Major General John GibbonRice's Station
• Colonel T. ReadHigh Bridge
• Major General A. A. HumphreysHigh Bridge
• Major General A.A. HumphreysCumberland Church

Fought across Virginia from March 29 to April 9, 1865, the Appomattox campaign brought a string of Civil War engagements to a close when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia. The surrender came to Union forces, comprising the Army of the Potomac, the Army of the James, and the Army of the Shenandoah, all operating under the overall direction of Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant. This surrender effectively brought the war to a close.

By the time the Richmond-Petersburg campaign, also called the siege of Petersburg, drew to a close, Lee's men were spread thin and worn down. Months of trench fighting along a front stretching roughly 40 mi (64 km), combined with repeated battles, illness, starvation, and desertion, had taken a heavy toll. Meanwhile Grant's forces, better supplied and better fed, kept growing stronger. On March 29, 1865, the Union launched an offensive that pulled apart and shattered Confederate lines southwest of Petersburg, severing the routes that supplied both Petersburg and Richmond, the Confederate capital. Two Union victories followed in quick succession: at Five Forks on April 1, 1865, and at the Third Battle of Petersburg, often known as the Breakthrough at Petersburg, on April 2, 1865. Together these left both cities vulnerable to capture at any moment. Anticipating that Grant's army might cut off any retreat, Lee gave orders on the night of April 2-3 to pull Confederate troops out of Petersburg and Richmond. That same night, Confederate government officials also abandoned Richmond, heading west.

Lee's army marched westward toward Lynchburg, Virginia, viewing it as a possible new seat for the Confederate government. His intention was to restock supplies in one of these cities before turning southwest into North Carolina, where his forces could join General Joseph E. Johnston's Confederate army. Grant, however, gave his fleeing opponents no rest, pursuing them without pause. Over the following week Union troops clashed repeatedly with Confederate units, choked off or destroyed their supplies, and sealed off their escape routes to the south and eventually to the west. A crushing blow came on April 6, 1865, at the Battle of Sailor's Creek in Virginia, where the Confederates lost approximately 7,700 men either killed or taken prisoner, with an unrecorded number wounded besides. Despite this, Lee pressed the remnants of his battered army further west. With his men trapped, starving, low on supplies, and vastly outnumbered, Lee finally yielded, surrendering the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant on April 9, 1865. The surrender took place at the McLean House, near the courthouse in the small village of Appomattox Court House in central Virginia.

Background

Following the grinding advance of the Overland Campaign, Union forces made an attempt on Petersburg between June 15 and 18, 1864, sending two army corps against a thin line of Confederate defenders in what became known as the Second Battle of Petersburg, sometimes called Grant's first offensive at Petersburg. That attempt collapsed once the Army of Northern Virginia arrived to bolster the town's outnumbered garrison by June 18, closing off any chance of a swift Union breakthrough. As matters stood when the campaign opened, Union troops had enough strength to hold the bulk of the Army of Northern Virginia confined within its trench lines and fortifications, which stretched from northeast of Richmond down to southwest of Petersburg, yet they lacked the numbers needed to encircle the Confederate army, sever every route supplying Petersburg and Richmond, or drive the defenders from their works entirely. On the Confederate side, the smaller army possessed sufficient strength to hold its defensive positions and even peel off detachments for independent operations elsewhere, but it could not muster a field force large enough to meet the Union army in a major battle capable of forcing a withdrawal.

Campaign prelude

Grant refused to let the Confederate assault on Fort Stedman derail him. He pressed ahead with the offensive he had planned on March 24, still set to launch on March 29.

Grant's strategy

Grant aimed to choke off the enemy's supplies at their source and sever the routes feeding Petersburg and Richmond, a strategy that would also stretch the thinning, outnumbered Confederate defenses until they snapped. With these goals in mind, he mounted five additional assaults on Petersburg before 1864 drew to a close, followed by another push in February 1865, and two final offensives spanning the last days of March into early April of that year. Throughout the autumn and winter that bridged 1864 and 1865, Grant steadily pushed the Union line westward from its position south of Petersburg. Lee responded in kind, lengthening his own lines to counter each move, but this left his forces spread thinner with every passing month.

Battle of Hatcher's Run

On February 5, 1865, Grant dispatched a substantial body of cavalry along with the V Corps of infantry in the direction of Dinwiddie Court House and Stony Creek Station, aiming to cut the Confederate supply line running along the Boydton Plank Road and seize what were believed to be numerous wagons loaded with provisions moving through the area. Little came of this effort against the road and its supplies, since the search turned up merely 18 wagons. Yet the operation produced a notable consequence: the Union position grew by 4 miles (6.4 km) westward, stretching from Fort Sampson out to where Vaughan Road crosses Hatcher's Run, and two vital crossings of the Run near Armstrong's Mill fell into Union hands. This lengthening of the front came about because the II Corps moved to shield the troops carrying out the raid and to hold their forward positions, with the V Corps arriving soon after to lend support. Combat persisted through poor weather on February 6 and 7, and afterward Union soldiers dug trenches and raised fortifications to secure the newly gained ground. In response, Confederate forces lengthened their own defenses, pushing their Boydton Plank Road line farther south and their White Oak Road line farther west. Once these extensions were complete, the opposing armies south of Petersburg held a combined front stretching 15 miles (24 km), running from the Appomattox River all the way to Hatcher's Run.

Aftermath

Grant and Sheridan pursued their opponent with a relentlessness and tactical skill rarely matched by earlier Union commanders, a stark contrast to Meade's caution following Gettysburg or McClellan's after Antietam. Lee fought on as effectively as circumstances allowed, yet his men, provisions, and fortune were all exhausted by the campaign's end. Though his army was just one of several Confederate forces still in the field, its capitulation dealt a wound to Southern morale that proved impossible to heal. Any remaining hope of Confederate victory had vanished, and by June 1865 every other army had followed suit in laying down arms.

Pinning down exact Confederate losses remains problematic, since numerous records vanished and not every unit filed the necessary paperwork. Chris M. Calkins, a historian with the National Park Service, places the toll at roughly 6,266 killed or wounded alongside 19,132 taken prisoner. Those who surrendered at Appomattox Court House numbered 22,349 in the infantry, 1,559 in the cavalry, and 2,576 among the artillery. Historian William Marvel has noted a common complaint among Confederate survivors, who claimed only "8,000 muskets" remained to face the vast Union force, but this figure conveniently leaves out both cavalry and artillery numbers and falls well short of the total soldiers who eventually obtained parole certificates. Numerous men who had deserted during the retreat drifted back afterward to secure the official documents that would let them return home without harassment. On the Union side, the campaign cost roughly 9,700 men killed, wounded, missing, or captured.