Ransom’s and Wallace’s brigades went with Pickett, leaving Anderson’s riflemen about 10 paces apart in waterlogged works along White Oak Road. To fill his line below Hatcher’s Run, Anderson pulled in Brig. Gen. Eppa Hunton’s Brigade, the last of Pickett’s units to arrive on the scene, as well as three Third Corps brigades.

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Lee arrived early on the 30th and surmised that Warren’s left flank looked open to attack. About 11 a.m. he sent Anderson’s troops against the enemy’s exposed position near White Oak Road, hoping to prevent Warren from seizing that path to Five Forks and the South Side Railroad. Anderson stayed close to the action in a subordinate, though active, role.

Four Confederate brigades charged with a yell, raking the bluecoats with musket volleys. “They broke and ran,” recalled one Virginia riflemen, “we at their heels…burning powder for all we were worth.” The Rebels rolled forward for more than a mile until the Yankees, backed by artillery, stiffened along a branch of Gravelly Run. Reinforced at midafternoon, the Federals counterattacked, pushing Anderson’s outgunned troops back to their log revetments along White Oak Road. Despite losing twice as many soldiers as the Confederates, the Federals were now firmly wedged between Anderson and Pickett.

Anderson rose on the morning of April 1 to find that the Union II Corps had replaced Warren’s men, who had slipped away to reinforce Sheridan. White Oak Road remained blocked. The rattle of musketry in late afternoon let Anderson know that Pickett was heavily engaged near Five Forks.

About 5:45 p.m., Lee ordered Anderson to take “my remaining force to Church [Road] Crossing,” on the South Side Railroad, two miles north of Five Forks. Pickett’s force had been shredded and scattered from the battlefield. Fitzhugh Lee’s cavalry and the survivors of Pickett’s command were being “hard pressed by the enemy.” Anderson’s Corps departed within an hour, marching through the night.

Anderson took a circuitous route around the Federal roadblock on White Oak Road, reaching Church Road Crossing before dawn on April 2. Lee’s horsemen and about 250 of Pickett’s men under Major Walter Harrison joined him. Pickett, with 800 men who escaped the debacle at Five Forks, had fled toward the Appomattox River. Some of Pickett’s troops, including most of Ransom’s Brigade, crossed to the north bank of the Appomattox on the ferry at Exeter Mill. The process of ferrying his entire command across the river was taking too long, however, so Pickett led the remainder of his force upriver.

Before noon, Anderson learned that “the enemy had carried our lines at Petersburg,” with Rebel troops soon streaming away from Richmond and Petersburg and crowding onto the roads north of the Appomattox. Lee planned to resupply his army at Amelia Court House on the Richmond & Danville Railroad, and would then follow the tracks to Danville, Va., and farther south, possibly to unite with Confederate Lt. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s army in North Carolina.

South of the Appomattox, Anderson’s Corps, joined by a few contingents from the Third Corps, was all that stood between the Union forces and Amelia Court House. Ordered to cross the river at Bevil’s Bridge and rejoin the rest of Lee’s army, Anderson struggled over mud-clotted byways from Church Road Crossing toward Namozine Road, which ran parallel to the Appomattox. Fitzhugh Lee’s cavalry guarded Anderson’s rear. “A continuous skirmish with the enemy was kept up,” recalled a Rebel trooper. “At points of advantage a stand was made.”

On Namozine Road near Scott’s Cross Roads, at midafternoon on April 2, Anderson faced a strong force of Yankee cavalry in hot pursuit. “A handsome line was formed,” reported Bushrod Johnson, “and hasty barricades of rails were thrown up.” Rebel cannons and small arms repulsed several daring assaults before the blue horsemen ceased attacking at dusk and bivouacked for the night. Anderson pushed on toward Bevil’s Bridge. One Southerner characterized the retreat as “Constant marching and fighting without food, shelter, or sleep.”

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