In the Trenches at Petersburg: Field Fortifications and Confederate Defeat

Conclusion

{ 280 } ConClUsion No one on the Federal side knew for certain what to expect at dawn on April 3. North of the James River,Weitzel’s troops carefully moved past the torpedo belt the Confederates had laid down the previous October; numerous red cloths “inserted in split sticks in the ground” marked pathways through the dangerous obstruction. As soon as Weitzel’s men entered Richmond, engineer officer King started to lay out and dig a defensive line, probably on the west or south side of the city.1 “This Army has now won a most desicive [sic] Victory and followed the enemy,” Grant informed Sherman. “This is all that it ever wanted to make it as good an Army as ever fought a battle.” Federal losses during the long Petersburg campaign totaled 42,000 men, while Confederate casualties amounted to 28,000. According to a recent estimate, Lee lost 25,000 men, or 40 percent of his strength, due to desertion, combat, and the detachment of several units to other theaters from January 10 through April 2.2 The tenor of the Grant-Lee confrontation, which had begun May 4 with the initial move into the Wilderness, had now changed. For the last eleven months it had been characterized by Federal moves that usually resulted in limited, if any, success. Now it was literally a race between the contending armies as Lee engaged in a desperate effort to escape the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the James. Nearly a year of brutal combat had so depleted the Confederacy’s best field army that it had to resort to grand tactics unprecedented in its history . Field fortifications played a role even within the highly fluid nature of operations during the Appomattox campaign. While Lee waited a full day at Amelia Court House, the Federals rushed cavalry and infantry to Jetersville to block his anticipated movement south of that crossroads. Sheridan’s troopers and the Fifth Corps were the only Federals digging in at Jetersville on April 4, but the Conclusion { 281 } Second Corps arrived by noon the next day to extend the strong line of earthworks , soon followed by the Sixth Corps. The Union line was about four miles long and flanked by a cavalry division on each wing. Although quickly made, the earthwork remnants that are accessible today show the entrenchment to be strong and imposing. Most of the remnants have a good ditch in front but no trench.The Federals located the line on the top of a gradual slope that provided a good field of fire.3 These earthworks altered the course of the campaign. Lee wanted to push southward to join Joseph E. Johnston’s forces in North Carolina, but reports that the Federals were too strongly entrenched at Jetersville “seemed to disappoint him greatly.” A Virginia artilleryman later recalled that no one who scouted the Federal position could bring back “a single hope of carrying” these works; “they were too grimly strong.” Lee decided to move west instead.4 Sheridan advanced a cavalry force that attacked Lee’s wagon trains near Painesville on April 5. The wagons were guarded by Custis Lee’s infantry division and some black Confederate troops. The latter, helped by the engineers, hastily dug earthworks, pulling apart rail fences and piling dirt on top of them. The Federals burned 200 wagons and captured hundreds of white and black prisoners. Lee was able to get a substantial head start on his opponent that day. Not until the early morning of April 6 did the Federals advance from their trenches at Jetersville, only to find the Confederates had gone west.5 The Sixth Corps caught up with Lee’s rear guard on April 6 and delivered a crushing blow at the battle of Sailor’s Creek. The Federals contended with only light breastworks located two-thirds of the way up the western slope of the wide, shallow valley of Little Sailor’s Creek, about ten miles west of Jetersville. While the Union center stopped, both flanks pivoted to envelop the Confederate position. Wright captured 3,400 Rebels, including six generals, equivalent to half the men he brought into the action himself.6 Elsewhere on April 6, Lee positioned Longstreet’s command to block Ord at Rice’s Station on the South Side Railroad, about three miles south of the High Bridge crossing of the Appomattox River near Farmville. Longstreet’s men constructed “small breastworks of rails” and “cleared the undergrowth of...