On the night of April 5, Confederate General-in-Chief Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia began moving west out of Amelia Court House in heavy rain. The army had dwindled to about 25,000 hungry, exhausted, and desperate men, with deserters dropping off at every mile. The troops headed toward Farmville, where Confederate Commissary General I.M. St. John arranged to have 80,000 rations waiting for them via the South Side Railroad. From there, Lee hoped to continue west to Lynchburg and then turn south to join forces with General Joseph E. Johnston’s Confederates in North Carolina.
Lee’s troops were pursued by some 80,000 Federals commanded by General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant. Major-General Philip Sheridan’s cavalry divisions were in the lead, followed by three corps of Major-General George G. Meade’s Army of the Potomac and one corps of Major-General E.O.C. Ord’s Army of the James. The Federals were highly motivated by the prospect of destroying Lee’s army and ending the war.
The Federals were mostly south and east of Lee’s Confederates. Early on the 6th, Grant discovered that Lee was moving west, past the Federal left flank. He therefore directed Sheridan’s troopers to ride northwest and block the Confederate advance while Federal infantry closed in from behind. Meade was ailing from malaria, but he nevertheless had his infantry in motion by 1 a.m. He planned to advance on Amelia Court House, but when he learned that Lee was no longer there, he wheeled left and joined Sheridan in the pursuit.
The opposing forces moved along parallel roads, with the Confederates on the northern route and slightly ahead. Lieutenant-General James Longstreet’s corps was in the lead, followed by Lieutenant-General Richard H. Anderson’s corps, Lieutenant-General Richard Ewell’s corps, the main Confederate wagon train, and Major-General John B. Gordon’s corps bringing up the rear. Federal Colonel Theodore Lyman of Meade’s staff noted that “The way was strewn with ammunition, waggons, tents, camp baggage, muskets…” Federals also came across starving animals and Confederate stragglers ready to surrender.
On the morning of the 6th, elements of Sheridan’s cavalry rode into a gap that had formed between Longstreet and Anderson. Longstreet was unaware that Anderson had been stopped and thus continued west to Rice’s Station. Ewell, moving behind Anderson, sent the wagon train north with Gordon’s Confederates to prevent its capture.
Ewell positioned his corps on a ridge facing northeast, overlooking the Hillsman farm and Little Sayler’s (or Sailor’s) Creek. Gordon was to his left (north), and Anderson was to his right rear (south). Major-General Horatio G. Wright’s Federal Sixth Corps/Army of the Potomac formed on the opposing ridge and gunners opened fire around 5 p.m. The infantry advanced soon after.
The Confederates waited for the Federals to cross the swollen creek and then unleashed a deadly volley. Ewell ordered a charge, but it was repulsed with heavy loss. The Federals countercharged, and the men engaged in vicious hand-to-hand combat. According to one of Ewell’s officers, “the battle degenerated into a butchery and confused melee of brutal personal conflicts. I saw numbers of men kill each other with bayonets and the butts of muskets, and even bite each other’s throats and ears and noses, rolling on the ground like wild beasts.”
The Federals ultimately overwhelmed Ewell’s undersized command, killing, wounding, or capturing 3,400 of his 3,600 men. Ewell was forced to surrender, and he told his captors, “It is murder to continue the contest longer.” Ewell later reported, “As shells and even bullets were crossing each other from front and rear over my troops, my right was completely enveloped. I surrendered myself and staff to a cavalry officer who came in by the same road General Anderson had gone out on.”
Ewell, the commander who had helped “Stonewall” Jackson mystify Federals in the Shenandoah Valley and who had lost a leg at Second Bull Run, was shipped to the Federal prison at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. Both of his division commanders, Major-Generals Joseph B. Kershaw and George Washington Custis Lee (oldest son of Robert E. Lee), also surrendered.
The Confederate naval forces that had been formed into an infantry unit after abandoning Richmond were among the last to surrender. Federal Colonel J. Warren Keifer rode ahead to accept their surrender before they had actually done so, and some Confederates trained their guns on him. But their commander, John R. Tucker, stopped them from killing the colonel. Tucker surrendered his sword to Keifer, who returned it to Tucker after the war.
To Ewell’s right rear, three Federal cavalry divisions attacked and overwhelmed Anderson’s men at a crossroads near the Harper and Marshall farms. The Confederates broke and fled into the woods; those who did not escape were taken prisoner. Anderson lost 2,600 men but managed to escape.
To Ewell’s left, Gordon fended off Major-General Andrew A. Humphreys’ Second Corps/Army of the Potomac while fleeing west. However, the Confederates were forced to make a stand on the high ground at the Lockett farm when their vital wagon train got stalled in mud. Humphreys’ 16,500 Federals gradually pushed Gordon’s 7,000 men back until they had to use the wagons for protection.
When the Federals began swinging around the Confederate left flank, Gordon ordered a retreat. Some 2,000 Confederates were captured, along with over 200 wagons that they could ill afford to lose. Confederate survivors straggled west toward Longstreet’s waiting forces at Rice’s Station.
General Lee rode with Major-General William Mahone, whose division was part of Longstreet’s corps. Mahone wrote, “As we were moving up in line General Lee riding with me… Colonel Venable informed him that the enemy had captured the wagon-trains at Sailor’s Creek. General Lee exclaimed, ‘Where is Anderson? Where is Ewell? It is strange I can’t hear from them.’” Mahone went on:
“On reaching the south crest of the high ground at the crossing of the river road overlooking Sailor’s Creek, the disaster which had overtaken our army was in full view, and the scene beggars description,–hurrying teamsters with their teams and dangling traces (no wagons), retreating infantry without guns, many without hats, a harmless mob, with the massive columns of the enemy moving orderly on. At this spectacle General Lee straightened himself in his saddle, and, looking more the soldier than ever, exclaimed, as if talking to himself, ‘My God! has the army dissolved?’ As quickly as I could control my own voice I replied, ‘No, general, here are troops ready to do their duty;’ when, in a mellowed voice, he replied, ‘Yes, general, there are some true men left. Will you please keep those people back?’”
Mahone’s men helped cover the retreat across the Appomattox River. The Confederates lost about 8,000 men, mostly captured, including six generals. This was roughly one-third of the remaining Army of Northern Virginia, and it was the largest number of Americans ever taken prisoner in battle up to that time (it was surpassed by Bataan 77 years later). This was Lee’s worst defeat of the war, and Confederates would remember it as “Black Thursday.”
But even though Lee had less than 20,000 men left in his army, the Federals had failed to block his escape path to the west. Lee therefore continued on toward Farmville as planned, now moving only with those who had either escaped from or avoided the Sayler’s Creek rout. After dark, the Confederates crossed the Appomattox and burned the High Bridge behind them.
Meanwhile, Sheridan reported to Grant:
“I attacked them with two divisions of the Sixth Army Corps and routed them handsomely, making a connection with the cavalry. I am still pressing on with both cavalry and infantry. Up to the present time we have captured Generals Ewell, Kershaw, Barton, Corse, DeBose and Custis Lee, several thousand prisoners, 14 pieces of artillery with caissons and a large number of wagons. If the thing is pressed I think Lee will surrender.”
Lyman recalled that Meade thought the message had been written by Wright, “but, when the name was read, P.H. Sheridan; he exclaimed, ‘And so Wright was not there!’–‘Oh, yes!’ replied the officer. Meade was thoroughly vexed at this combination of fine news and borrowed (yea pilfered) glory.” Nevertheless, the Federal high command was now confident that Lee’s army was finally on the verge of collapse.
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