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The Appomattox campaign was the closing campaign of the Eastern theater of the American Civil War, during which Ulysses S. Grant's Union armies pursued Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia from Petersburg to Appomattox, where a cornered Lee and his exhausted, battered army was forced to surrender.

Background[]

On 3 April, the Southern capital Richmond fell to Union troops. Confederate hopes now lay in tatters, yet General Robert E. Lee's army still had not yet been defeated.

The Army of Northern Virginia's only remaining hope lay in evading its Union pursuers until it could join up with General Joseph E. Johnston's Army of North Carolina. But Lee's men were outnumbered - 25,000 against 125,000 Union troops under General Ulysses S. Grant. They were also exhausted, while the Union forces were buoyed by the prospect of final victory. To have any chance of making contact with Johnston, Lee would have to evacuate his troops by rail. The retreat westward thus became a desperate race to reach railheads - a race in which the Union troops had the advantage from the start.

History[]

The single greatest imperative facing General Robert E. Lee after the loss of Petersburg was the need to reestablish supply lines to feed his hungry men. His immediate target was the village of Amelia Court House, which lay on the Richmond and Danville railroad line. There he hoped to find not just ample supplies of food but also a base from which he could evacuate his army by rail south to Danville, Virginia, where Confederate President Jefferson Davis was waiting. From Danville he hoped to effect a rendezvous with General Joseph E. Johnston's Army of North Carolina, which was the only other substantial Confederate army in the field.

Yet his hopes would be sorely dashed. In the confusion of the flight from Petersburg the wrong orders were dispatched, and what the Confederate troops found on arriving at Amelia station was a huge stash of ammunition - worse than useless to the army, as their supply wagons could barely carry the ordnance they already had.

Lost time[]

Lee knew that his exhausted men could not continue without sustenance, and valuable time was lost while foraging parties hunted for provisions. By the time the army lurched forward again, it had lost any lead it had hoped to gain. Anticipating Lee's movements, General Ulysses S. Grant had dispatched General Philip Sheridan's cavalry to cut off the rail links west of Amelia Court House. In particular, Sheridan's force was told to seize the important rail junction at Burkeville, where the South Side Railroad crossed the Danville and Richmond line. The Union infantry followed close behind them.

The pursuit westward[]

For almost a two week, the two armies marched on parallel courses westward, as Union scouting parties clashed with outlying Confederate detachments. The most serious of the engagements came at Sailor's Creek on 6 April, when three Union corps cut off a quarter of Lee's army, capturing some 6,000 men.

Their strength sapped by overnight marches in heavy rain on minimal rations, many soldiers simply gave up the march, lying by the roadside until picked up by pursuing forces. For two more days, Lee's army trudged on until it approached the village of Appomattox Court House, 90 miles west of Richmond. Lee rallied his troops for a final effort, seeking to break through the Union forces in order to reach the Virginia and Tennessee railroad at Lynchburg. The Confederates cleared a screen of Union horsemen, only to confront two infantry corps falling into line. Other Northern troops were approaching from the rear. Lee's redoubtable Army of Northern Virginia - what was left of it - was finally trapped.

Faced with the situation he had sought to avoid, Lee called a meeting of his commanders. Fighting on, it was agreed, would be a useless sacrifice. Someone suggested letting the men slip away into the countryside to fight as guerrillas, but Lee rejected the proposal. To do so, he said, would inflict destruction on regions that might otherwise have escaped it. "We would bring on a state of affairs it would take the country years to recover from," he concluded.

That left only one course of action. Grant had already put out peace feelers a couple of days earlier, but Lee had sent a temporizing response. Now with a heavy heart, he dispatched a message to his opponent; he was ready to discuss "the surrender of this army."

Lee surrenders[]

A reenactment of the surrender at Appomattox

A reenactment of the surrender at Appomattox

It took some hours to arrange a meeting and find a suitable venue. The McLean House, the best-appointed residence in the village, was chosen. When the two generals met face to face, they formed a study in contrasts. Lee was every inch the Southern aristocrat, in full-dress uniform with sash and jeweled sword; Grant, the shorter of the two, wore a private's blouse and mud-splattered trousers and boots, his best outfit in the circumstances.

The oddly matched pair exchanged cordialities, but when they turned to business, the terms that Grant offered proved more generous than Lee had expected. Confederate officers and men must give their word not to take up arms again against the US government and deliver up their weapons and other supplies as captured property. Officers would be permitted to keep their sidearms, horses, and personal baggage. All men would be free to return to their homes, "not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside." This last phrase meant that the defeated soldiers were freed from the threat of further punishment or of prosecution for treason. In addition, Grant agreed to Lee's request that common soldiers, too, should be allowed to keep their horses or mules for use as farm animals.

The formal act of surrender took place three days later. A line of Confederate soldiers tramped between columns of Union troops commanded by Major General Joshua Chamberlain to lay down their arms and battle standards. In exchange, they received written passes assuring them of a safe passage homeward. Lee himself headed back to Richmond, a commander without an army; as a mark of respect, a troupe of Union cavalry accompanied him for part of the way.

Aftermath[]

The surrender at Appomattox removed the last Confederate hopes of a negotiated peace, but it did not in fact end the war.

General Lee's surrender did not apply to all Confederate forces in the field. In theory, other troops in other theaters were free to fight on. In practice, though, none stood a realistic chance of long-term military success. April 1865 had seen the South lose both its capital and its principal fighting force. With Lee defeated and Confederate President Jefferson Davis in flight, the South had no leader. General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered in North Carolina on 26 April, General Richard Taylor in Alabama on 4 May, and General Edmund Kirby Smith in the trans-Mississippi region on 26 May.

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