The heavy rains had finally stopped by the morning of March 31. Confederate infantry and cavalry from the Army of Northern Virginia held Five Forks, a key intersection protecting the South Side Railroad west of Petersburg. General-in-Chief Robert E. Lee, commanding the Confederate army, ordered a force of infantry and cavalry under the command of Major-Generals George Pickett and Fitzhugh Lee to move south and drive Major-General Philip Sheridan’s Federal cavalry away from Dinwiddie Court House. This would secure Five Forks and separate Sheridan from infantry support to the east.
Lee noticed a gap between Sheridan and Major-General Gouverneur Warren’s Fifth Corps. Opposing Warren was Lieutenant-General Richard H. Anderson’s corps, which by now consisted of just a single division under Major-General Bushrod R. Johnson. Lee inspected Johnson’s positions and was told that Warren had his “left flank in the air.” Lee therefore ordered Johnson (under Anderson’s supervision) to attack and turn Warren’s flank away from Sheridan. This was a desperate gamble considering that there were only about 19,000 Confederates opposing some 50,000 Federals in the southwestern sector of the Petersburg lines.
Warren’s Federals held the Boydton Plank Road. To their right (east) was Major-General Andrew A. Humphreys’ Second Corps. Warren informed Humphreys, “I cannot take up any regular line of battle on account of the woods and swamps, but have assembled each division at a point so they can fight in any direction with the line refused… I don’t think your left could be turned, even if I moved away, without you having full information.”
Major-General George G. Meade, commanding the Federal Army of the Potomac, notified Warren, “Owing to the weather, no change will today be made in the present position of the troops. Three days’ rations of subsistence and forage will be brought up and issued to the troops and the artillery, and every one authorized to accompany them.” The Federals were unaware that a Confederate attack was imminent.
Warren ordered his lead division under Major-General Romeyn B. Ayres to seize the White Oak Road because this was “essentially necessary to the safety of our position.” Warren headed to the front to take command of the operation around 10:30 a.m., unaware that Johnson’s Confederates had launched a vicious assault on Ayres’ Federals. Ayres reported: “As the troops arrived within about fifty yards of the White Oak road, the enemy’s lines of battle rose up in the woods and moved forward across the road into the open. I saw at once that they had four or five to my one.”
Ayres tried holding his ground, but some Confederates moved around and attacked his vulnerable left flank, thus forcing him to fall back into Major-General Samuel W. Crawford’s division. Crawford’s men broke as well, and the Federals retreated to behind a branch of Gravelly Run. Warren ordered them to hold there while he brought up his last division, under Major-General Charles Griffin.
Griffin’s men, led by Brigadier-General Joshua L. Chamberlain’s brigade, advanced and slowly regained all lost ground. The Federals ultimately seized the White Oak Road, which cut Anderson’s men off from Pickett’s to the west. Also, Warren dispatched a brigade westward to threaten Pickett’s left flank as he confronted Sheridan. Meade reported to General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant that Warren had stopped the Confederate advance, and Humphreys was sending a division to Warren’s support. Grant asked:
“If the enemy has been checked in Warren’s front, what is to prevent him from pitching in with his whole corps and attacking before giving him time to entrench or return in good order to his old entrenchments? I do not understand why Warren permitted his corps to be fought in detail. When Ayres was pushed forward he should have sent other troops to their support.”
To the west, Sheridan planned an attack of his own. Brigadier-General Thomas C. Devin, known as “Sheridan’s hard hitter,” advanced his cavalry division north toward Five Forks. Pickett at Five Forks was waiting for two cavalry divisions to reinforce him, and when they arrived early this morning, Pickett sent his force toward Dinwiddie Court House around 9 a.m. The Federals were unexpectedly met by an enemy assault from their left. Devin’s men gradually fell back across the rain-soaked ground, as Devin notified Sheridan that both his flanks were under threat and Dinwiddie might have to be abandoned.
Sheridan brought up his other two divisions and secured a defense line about a mile north of Dinwiddie. Grant sent Colonel Horace Porter of his staff to visit Sheridan, and Porter came up just as the Confederates charged around dusk. Porter wrote that one of Sheridan’s regimental bands braved heavy fire by “playing ‘Nellie Bly’ as cheerily as if it were furnishing music for a country picnic.” Other bands came up to the front and played as loud as possible to jar enemy morale.
Sheridan then ordered Brigadier-General George A. Custer to lead his division in a counterattack, telling Custer, “You understand? I want you to give it to them!” However, this effort came to nothing as the men and horses became tangled in the mud. Both sides fell back out of firing range as the sun set. Sheridan informed Porter that he was “concentrating his command on the high ground just north of Dinwiddie, and would hold that position at all hazards.” Later, Sheridan sent a less confident message to Grant: “This force is too strong for us. I will hold on to Dinwiddie Court-House until I am compelled to leave.”
Pickett had won a tactical victory, but the Confederates had failed to drive Sheridan out of Dinwiddie or prevent the Federal cavalry and infantry from joining forces. Recognizing the danger of his position, Pickett fell back to protect Five Forks. His infantry held the line to the left while Major-General Fitzhugh Lee’s cavalry held the right. There was still a three-mile gap between this force and Anderson’s to the east.
Sheridan planned a frontal assault on Pickett and Fitz Lee the next day. In conjunction, he wanted infantry to march through the gap and come up on Pickett’s left and rear. Grant had offered to put Warren’s Fifth Corps under Sheridan’s command since it was the closest infantry, but Sheridan wanted Major-General Horatio G. Wright’s Sixth Corps, which had served under him in the Shenandoah Valley, to join him. Sheridan wrote Grant on the night of the 31st: “If the ground would permit I could, with the Sixth Corps, turn the enemy’s right, or break through his lines; but I would not like the Fifth Corps to make such an attempt.” Grant later wrote:
“I replied to him that it was impossible to send Wright’s corps because that corps was already in line close up to the enemy, where we should want him to assault when the proper time came, and was besides a long distance from him; but the 2d and 5th corps were on our extreme left and a little to the rear of it in a position to threaten the left flank of the enemy at Five Forks, and that I would send Warren. Accordingly orders were sent to Warren to move at once that night (the 31st) to Dinwiddie Court House and put himself in communication with Sheridan as soon as possible, and report to him. He was very slow in moving… He was also hastened or at least ordered to move up rapidly by General Meade.”
Just as the men of the Fifth Corps settled down from the all-day fight, Warren received orders to march them westward all night to link with Sheridan by dawn. This proved extremely difficult, not only because the troops were exhausted, but because they would have to move in darkness across swollen creeks, swamps, and mud. They also had to stop and build a 40-foot bridge to span Gravelly Run. Warren informed Meade of the delay, but this was not forwarded to Sheridan, who wrote Warren at 3 a.m. on the 1st:
“I am holding in front of Dinwiddie Court-House, on the road leading to Five Forks, for three-fourths of a mile, with General Custer’s division… I understand you have a division at J. Boisseau’s; if so, you are in rear of the enemy’s line and almost on his flank. I will hold on here. Possibly they may attack Custer at daylight; if so, have this division attack instantly and in full force.”
Sheridan did not receive any specific details as to where Warren was or when he might arrive. He also knew nothing about the difficulties Warren’s men faced in trying to reach Sheridan’s line. Moreover, Sheridan did not trust Warren, so if there was to be any delay in arriving in time for the next day’s fight, Warren would get the blame.
Bibliography
Angle, Paul M., A Pictorial History of the Civil War Years. New York: Doubleday, 1967.
Bearss, Edwin C. with Suderow, Bryce, The Petersburg Campaign: The Western Front Battles, September 1864-April 1865, Volume II. El Dorado Hills, Calif.: Savas Beattie LLC; Casemate Publishers, Kindle Edition, 2012.
Catton, Bruce, The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War. New York: American Heritage Publishing Co., 1960.
Catton, Bruce, The Army of the Potomac: A Stillness at Appomattox. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1953.
Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command. Open Road Media, Kindle Edition, 2015.
Davis, Jefferson, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government: All Volumes. Heraklion Press, Kindle Edition 2013, 1889.
Foote, Shelby, The Civil War, A Narrative: Red River to Appomattox. New York: Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (Kindle Edition), 2011.
Freeman, Douglas Southall, Lee. Scribner, (Kindle Edition), 2008.
Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. New York: Da Capo Press, 1982 (original 1885, republication of 1952 edition).
Kennedy, Frances H. (ed.), The Civil War Battlefield Guide. James M. McPherson, The Conservation Fund, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990.
Long, E.B. with Long, Barbara, The Civil War Day by Day. New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971.
McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Oxford History of the United States Book 6, Oxford University Press (Kindle Edition), 1988.
Pollard, Edward A., Southern History of the War (facsimile of the 1866 edition). New York: Fairfax Press, 1990.
Sears, Stephen W., Lincoln’s Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books, (Kindle Edition), 2017.
Wert, Jeffry D. (Patricia L. Faust ed.), Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.
Thank you for sharing this 🖤