America’s Civil War: Last Ditch Rebel Stand at Petersburg

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On March 31, a portion of Sheridan’s force reached the outskirts of Five Forks but were repulsed by Maj. Gens. George Pickett and Fitzhugh Lee. A terse message soon arrived from General Lee. Hold Five Forks at all hazards, he ordered. Incredibly, Pickett and Fitzhugh Lee chose the next day to hold a holidaylike shad bake behind their lines, and that same afternoon the relentless Sheridan struck, routing and scattering the leaderless Confederates. In one stroke, Lee’s entire right flank disappeared.

To replace the lost infantrymen on the right and attempt to continue holding his lines around Petersburg, Lee sent a desperate appeal that night to Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, who was north of the James River guarding Richmond, to come immediately to his aid. Major General Charles Field’s 4,600-man division was at least 12 hours away from Petersburg, and could not be expected to arrive before 7:30 a.m. on April 2. In the meantime, Confederate troops were moving out of their old earthworks and shifting toward the right to meet the enemy flanking movement there, with the slight hope that Field’s reinforcements would arrive at Petersburg before a general Federal assault fell on the defenders across the entire line.

Grant, however, alertly launched a heavy attack along the whole length of the Confederate lines south of the Appomattox River at dawn (4:45 a.m.) on April 2, and the center of Lee’s lines was soon broken at a thin section held by Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill’s III Corps. As Lee came out of his headquarters behind Hill’s lines at the Turnbull house before daylight on the morning of April 2 to investigate the heavy firing that was in progress, he could just make out a long line of men coming toward him from the southwest. In the growing light, Lee could clearly see the blue uniforms of the troops, who were not more than half a mile away.

Hill was present at headquarters by this time, and he immediately set out with a lone courier to try to ride around the advancing Federals in a desperate attempt to rally his troops and restore the broken lines. The III Corps commander had said recently that he had no wish to survive the fall of Richmond, if that should occur. His wish was soon fulfilled–as Hill was killed instantly when knocked from his horse by a shot through the heart. In the meantime, a six-gun battery set up on the grounds of the Turnbull house opened fire to slow the advance of the oncoming Federals.

A semicircular section of the Confederate line held by Gordon on the left, surrounding Petersburg itself and running from the Appomattox River on the east to Fort Gregg well west of the city, had remained intact. The only chance to buy sufficient time for an evacuation of the major portion of Lee’s army that night required that the Federals be kept out of the 11ž2-mile-wide gap in the lines on the west (running north from Fort Gregg to the Appomattox River) until Field’s approaching division could be brought into place about noon to establish an effective inner line of defense.

Lee himself was presently outside the intended inner line of defense, with hardly any Confederate troops between him and the enemy, a mere half mile away. Undaunted, Lee took time to go back into his headquarters and rapidly complete his dressing, including the unusual step of strapping on a dress sword with his full uniform. Reluctant to leave even then, Lee took personal charge of the guns. Later, a Federal officer reported: As we advanced over rolling and open country, a rebel battery opened on our left. Several times, as it was forced to change positions by the fire of the First Maine, we noticed a fine-looking old officer on a gray horse, who seemed to be directing its movements. At length the guns went into battery again on a hill near a large house, and their presence became more annoying than ever. By common consent the three brigades attempted to charge the hill, but the canister fire was so hot that the first attack was a failure. Later, I asked a mortally wounded artillery officer left behind what battery it was. ‘Poague’s North Carolina’, he said, and then I asked who was the officer on the gray horse? ‘General Robert E. Lee, sir, and he was the last man to leave these guns.’

Tags: 19th Century, America's Civil War, American Civil War, Historical Conflicts

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