2 April 1865 A.D. GEN Lee & Confederates in Desperate Westward Retreat
2 April 1865 A.D. GEN Lee & Confederates in Desperate Westward
Retreat
Editors. “1865 – After a ten-month siege, Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant capture the
trenches around Petersburg, Virginia, and Confederate General Robert E. Lee
leads his troops on a desperate retreat westward.” This Day in
U.S. Military History. N.d. https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/april-2/. Accessed 1 Apr 2015.
1865 – After a ten-month siege, Union forces
under Ulysses S. Grant capture the trenches around Petersburg, Virginia, and
Confederate General Robert E. Lee leads his troops on a desperate retreat
westward. The ragged Confederate troops could no longer maintain the
40-mile network of defenses that ran from southwest of Petersburg to north of
Richmond, the Rebel capital 25 miles north of Petersburg. Through the winter,
desertion and attrition melted Lee’s army down to less than 60,000, while
Grant’s army swelled to over 120,000. Grant attacked Five Forks southwest of
Petersburg on April 1, scoring a huge victory that cut Lee’s supply line and
inflicted 5,000 casualties. The next day, Lee wrote to Confederate President
Jefferson Davis, “I think it absolutely necessary that we should abandon our
position tonight…” Grant’s men attacked all along the Petersburg front. In the
predawn hours, hundreds of Federal cannon roared to life as the Yankees
bombarded the Rebel fortifications. Said one soldier, “the shells screamed
through the air in a semi-circle of flame.” At 5:00 in the morning, Union
troops silently crawled toward the Confederates, shrouded in darkness.
Confederate pickets alerted the troops, and the Yankees were raked by heavy
fire, but the determined troops poured forth and began overrunning the
trenches. Four thousand Union troops were killed or wounded, but a northern
officer wrote, “It was a great relief, a positive lifting of a load of misery
to be at last let at them.” Confederate General Ambrose Powell Hill, a corps
commander in the Army of Northern Virginia and one of Lee’s most trusted
lieutenants, rode to the front to rally his men. As he approached some trees
with his aide, two Union soldiers emerged and fired, killing Hill instantly.
Hill had survived four years of war and dozens of battles only to die during
the final days of the Confederacy. When Lee received the news, he quietly said
“He is at rest now, and we who are left are the ones to suffer.” By nightfall,
President Davis and the Confederate government were in flight and Richmond was
on fire. Retreating Rebel troops set ablaze several huge warehouses to prevent
them from being captured by the Federals and the fires soon spread. With the
army and government officials gone, bands of thugs roamed the streets looting
what was left.
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