Appomattox campaign

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Lewis' Farm - White Oak Road - Dinwiddie Court House - Five Forks - Petersburg III - Sutherland Station - Namozine Church - Amelia Springs - Saylor's Creek - Rice's Station - Cumberland Church - High Bridge - Appomattox Station - Appomattox Court House

The Appomattox Campaign (March 29 - April 9, 1865) was a series of battles during the American Civil War that resulted in the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia , the main army in the Confederate States of America . This surrender is commonly seen as the end of the civil war, although the last Confederate army did not give up fighting until mid-June.

prehistory

After more than ten months of trench warfare , the siege of Petersburg neared its end in March 1865. The Commander-in-Chief of the US Army , Lieutenant General Grant , extended the positions of the armies deployed near Petersburg further and further west during the siege. The lines of the numerically weaker Confederates were thereby stretched more and more, so that the position of the Northern Virginia Army was now on the verge of collapse. A final attempt by the Confederates to break up the siege, the attack on Fort Stedman , had failed.

Grant, reinforced by troops from the Shenandoah Valley under General Sheridan , decided to attack the Northern Virginia Army's last remaining supply line, the Southside Railroad to the west, which would inevitably force the Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Virginia Army General Lee , Petersburg and give up Richmond . Grant was aware, however, that in this case Lee would probably dodge southwest towards Lynchburg and try to unite with the Tennessee Army of Johnston in North Carolina or southern Virginia . It was not enough to drive Lee out of Petersburg, but also to prevent him from marching on and thereby force him to give up, outnumbered in the open field. At the end of March, when the hitherto bad weather improved, Grant's subordinate General Sheridan began his operation against the Southside Railroad with the cavalry and the V Corps of the Potomac Army .

course

Sheridan marched west towards Dinwiddie Court House , but suffered a small setback on March 31 ( Battle of Dinwiddie Court House ). He rearranged his forces and, after initial difficulties , on April 1, at the Battle of Five Forks, carried out a devastating blow on the right flank of the Confederate Army that separated General Pickett's forces from the rest of the Northern Virginia Army and forced Lee to prepare the evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond. The following day General Meade launched a general assault on the Confederate lines and took Petersburg after almost eleven months of siege. The next day, James Army troops also marched into the Confederate capital of Richmond. The Confederation government and its main army, meanwhile, were constantly being harassed by Grant's troops, retreating westward. During the fighting at Saylor's Creek on April 6, the Union forces succeeded in cutting off the corps of General Ewell and RH Anderson from the rest of the army and forcing them to surrender. The following day the Northern Virginia Army achieved its last victory at Farmville when an attack by Union troops was repulsed in a delay action. Lee's army, hungry and tired, tried to get further west, where Lee hoped to find extra food. On April 8, the Northern Cavalry overtook the Confederates, reached Appomattox Court House, and blocked the Northern Virginia Army route. After the attempt to break out of General Gordon's Corps failed on April 9 after initial successes, Lee finally consented to the surrender of his army (see also Appomattox Court House , Battle of Appomattox ).

Duration of the campaign

There are different details about the time frame of the Appomattox campaign. Some sources count the fighting in the Petersburg area from March 29th to April 2nd as part of the siege of Petersburg and only describe the evasion of the Northern Virginia Army as the Appomattox campaign

Web links

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