Lee's Retreat Driving Tour

**Dinwiddie Tour Stops: South Side Station, The Breakthough, White Oak Road, Five Forks, and Sutherland Station.**

Early in 1865, as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant tightened
the siege around Gen. Robert E. Lee and the
Army of Northern Virginia in Richmond and
Petersburg, Lee planned for the evacuation of
his troops. He determined to march to North Carolina,
consolidate his army with Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s,
defeat Gen. William T. Sherman’s army, and then turn on
Grant. When the Federals broke through his lines on April
2, Lee put his plan in motion. The wings of his army were
to rendezvous at Amelia Court House, resupply, and march
to Danville along the Richmond and Danville Railroad.
Little went as planned. High water made crossing the
Appomattox River difficult, delaying the rendezvous, and
the anticipated supplies were not at Amelia Court House.
Lee also lost his day’s lead over the pursuing Grant while
he waited, allowing Federal cavalry and infantry to block
his path down the track at Jetersville. Deciding not to
give battle, Lee turned west and began a series of three
consecutive night marches. Grant’s strategy—to press Lee
from the rear while preventing him from turning south,
get the cavalry in front of him, and then surround and
compel him to fight or surrender—began to take effect.
Fighting by day and marching by night, Lee’s
exhausted and hungry men trudged toward Farmville,
their next supply station. The column stretched for miles,
slowed by a voluminous baggage train. At almost every
watercourse, the men and wagons bogged down and Gen.
Philip H. Sheridan’s Union cavalry slammed into Lee’s
rear guard. On April 6, the Federals brought Lee to bay at
Little Sailor’s Creek, where in three separate engagements
almost a quarter of the Confederate force was killed or
captured. Lee, absorbing the magnitude of the disaster,
remarked, “My God, has the army been dissolved?”
The survivors crossed High Bridge, the huge railroad
trestle over the Appomattox River and the scene of intense
combat earlier in the day, and made their way to Farmville.
The next day, as they distributed rations from the trains
at the depot, the gunfire of Federal cavalry was heard
from the east. Lee also learned that Union infantrymen
had successfully crossed the Appomattox River on a small
wagon bridge below High Bridge and were threatening his line of march. He sent his troops across the river to dig in
around Cumberland Church and fend off Union probes.
Beginning what would be their last night march on
April 7, Lee’s men headed for the next destination, Appomattox Station on the South Side Railroad, where supplies
sent east from Lynchburg awaited them. Once replenished,
the army would continue west to Campbell Court House
near Lynchburg. But Union cavalry captured the station
and the supplies and positioned itself between Lee and his
next objective. With Federal infantry closing in behind
him, Lee ordered a breakout attempt for dawn the next
morning, April 9. Gen. John B. Gordon led the attack with
a combined force of cavalry and infantry and fought his
men to “a frazzle.” The cavalrymen cut through their Federal counterparts and escaped, but then large numbers of
Union infantry arrived in support. Gordon reported to Lee
that it was no use. Flags of truce broke out. The shooting
died away, and that afternoon, in the little village of Appomattox Court House, the war in Virginia came to an end