The Battle of Lewis's Farm (also known as Quaker Road, Military Road, or Gravelly Run) was fought on March 29, 1865, in Dinwiddie County, Virginia near the end of the American Civil War. In climactic battles at the end of the Richmond–Petersburg Campaign, usually referred to as the Siege of Petersburg,The campaign was not a true siege because the Confederate Army and the cities of Petersburg and Richmond were never surrounded and actions took place at locations other than Petersburg, principally in the Richmond area. See the Siege of Petersburg article for further details. starting with Lewis's Farm, the Union Army commanded by Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant dislodged the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia commanded by General Robert E. Lee from defensive lines at Petersburg, Virginia and the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Many historians and the United States National Park Service consider the Battle of Lewis's Farm to be the opening battle of the Appomattox Campaign, which resulted in the surrender of Lee's army on April 9, 1865.Bryce A. Suderow, in his introduction to Chapter 5 of Ed Bearss's 2014 edition of Volume II of The Petersburg Campaign: The Western Front Battles, September 1864–April 1865, says this battle should be considered "the first battle of what should be viewed as the Five Forks Campaign." Bearss, 2014, p. 313.National Park Service Civil War Battle Summaries by Campaign (Eastern Theater) .Calkins, Chris M. The Appomattox Campaign, March 29 – April 9, 1865. Conshohocken, PA: Combined Books, 1997. . p. 12.
In the early morning of March 29, 1865, two corps of the Union Army of the Potomac, the V Corps under Major General Gouverneur K. Warren and the II Corps under Major General Andrew A. Humphreys, moved to the south and west of the Union line south of Petersburg toward the end of the Confederate line. The Confederate defenses were manned by the Fourth Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia under the command of Lieutenant General Richard H. Anderson. The corps only included the division of Major General Bushrod Johnson.
Turning north and marching up the Quaker Road toward the Confederate line, Warren's lead brigade, commanded by Brigadier General Joshua Chamberlain, engaged three brigades of Johnson's division at the Lewis Farm. Reinforced by a four-gun artillery battery and later relieved by two large regiments from the brigade commanded by Colonel (Brevet Brigadier General) Edgar M. Gregory, the Union troops ultimately forced the Confederates back to their defenses and captured an important road junction. Chamberlain was wounded and narrowly escaped capture. Union Colonel (Brevet Brigadier General) Alfred L. Pearson was awarded the Medal of Honor 32 years later for his heroic actions at the battle.
Casualties were nearly even at 381 for the Union and 371 for the Confederates, but as the battle ended, Warren's corps held an important objective, a portion of the Boydton Plank Road at its junction with the Quaker Road. Within hours, Major General Philip Sheridan's cavalry corps, which was still acting apart from the Army of the Potomac as the Army of the Shenandoah, occupied Dinwiddie Court House. This action also severed the Boydton Plank Road. The Union forces were close to the Confederate line and poised to attack the Confederate flank, the important road junction of Five Forks and the two Confederate railroad lines to Petersburg and Richmond that remained open to the two cities.
On April 2–3, 1865, the Confederates evacuated Petersburg and Richmond and began to move to the west. After a number of setbacks and mostly small battles, but including a significant Confederate defeat at the Battle of Sailor's Creek on April 6, 1865, Lee surrendered his army to Grant and his pursuing Union Army on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House, about 25 miles (40 km) east of Lynchburg, Virginia. By the end of June 1865, all Confederate armies had surrendered and the Confederacy's government had collapsed.
Background Military situation
Richmond–Petersburg Campaign
On June 15–18, 1864, two Union Army corps, moved unobserved from the stalemated battle lines just north of Richmond across the James River to the south of Petersburg, Virginia. The Union force which joined with the Union Army of the James at Petersburg failed to seize the city from a small force of Confederate defenders at the Second Battle of Petersburg. By June 18, 1864, the Army of Northern Virginia had reinforced the defenders and the 292-day Richmond–Petersburg Campaign (Siege of Petersburg) had begun.Hess, Earl J. In the Trenches at Petersburg: Field Fortifications & Confederate Defeat. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. . pp. 18–37.
Grant's strategy had to become a campaign of trench warfare attrition in which the Union forces tried to wear down the Confederate Army, destroy or cut off sources of supply and supply lines to Petersburg and Richmond and to extend the lines which the outnumbered and declining Confederate force had to defend to the breaking point.Beringer, Richard E., Herman Hattaway, Archer Jones, and William N. Still, Jr. Why the South Lost the Civil War. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986. . pp. 331–332.Trudeau, Noah Andre. The Last Citadel: Petersburg, Virginia, June 1864–April 1865. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991. . p. 18.
During the rest of 1864 and early 1865, Grant slowly moved his forces in the Union line south of Petersburg to the west in six more Petersburg offensives, usually with simultaneous attacks at or near the Richmond lines.Hess, 2009, pp. 18–37.Sommers, Richard J. Richmond Redeemed: The Siege at Petersburg. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981. . p. 2. The Confederates extended their lines to compensate for these moves, but they were stretched increasingly thin.Weigley, Russell F. A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861–1865. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000. . p. 432. With supplies and men increasingly hard for Lee to obtain or replace, he knew that his army could not defend Petersburg and Richmond from the growing Union forces indefinitely, especially with the expected arrival of Union reinforcements from recent recruits in training, Major General Philip Sheridan's cavalry divisions from the Shenandoah Valley and possibly even Major General William T. Sherman's armies already operating in North Carolina when the roads dried out after spring rains abated.Trudeau, 1991, pp. 324–325.Greene, A. Wilson. The Final Battles of the Petersburg Campaign: Breaking the Backbone of the Rebellion. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2008. . p. 111Hattaway, Herman, and Archer Jones. How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983. . pp. 669–671.
After the Battle of Hatcher's Run on February 5–7, 1865 extended the lines another , Lee had few reserves after manning the new defenses.Lee had to use two of his three reserve units to hold the extended line. Bearss, Edwin C., with Bryce A. Suderow. The Petersburg Campaign. Vol. 2, The Western Front Battles, September 1864 – April 1865. El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie, 2014. . p. 239.Shelby Foote stated that the Confederate line was extended to , "exclusive of recurrent jogs and doublings", and that his strength was reduced to 46,398 men "present for duty." Foote, 1974, p. 785.Weigley, 2000, p. 433.Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative. Vol. 3, Red River to Appomattox. New York: Random House, 1974. . He then knew that part or all of his army must leave the Richmond and Petersburg lines, obtain food and supplies at Danville, Virginia or possibly Lynchburg, Virginia and join General Joseph E. Johnston's force opposing Sherman's army. If the Confederates could quickly defeat Sherman, they might turn back to oppose Grant before he could combine his forces with the remainder of Sherman's.Greene, 2008, p. 154.Calkins, 1997, pp. 14, 16.Hess, 2009, p. 253.Longacre, Edward G. The Cavalry at Appomattox: A Tactical Study of Mounted Operations During the Civil War's Climactic Campaign, March 27 – April 9, 1865. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003. . p. 39. Lee began preparations for the movement and informed Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Confederate States Secretary of War John C. Breckinridge of his conclusions and plan.Trudeau, 1991, pp. 324–325.Hattaway, 1983, pp. 669–671.
Lee accepted Major General John B. Gordon's proposal to attempt to break the Union lines and threaten their supply base at City Point, Virginia by attacking along a narrow front near Fort Stedman, east of Petersburg and south of the Appomattox River, in order to compel Grant to shorten his lines, at least temporarily.Trudeau, 1991, pp. 337–352. If successful, this could give Lee an opportunity to shorten his lines and an opening and head start in a movement to the west and toward North Carolina.Greene, 2008, p. 108.Davis, William C. An Honorable Defeat: The Last Days of the Confederate Government. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2001. . p. 49.
After Gordon's Confederates surprise attack on Fort Stedman in the pre-dawn hour of March 25, 1865 had some initial success, a Union counterattack at the Battle of Fort Stedman recaptured the fort and forced the Confederates to return to their lines and give up their advance picket line, including much of the western part of that line in the afternoon at the Battle of Jones's Farm. The Confederates suffered about 4,000 casualties which they could ill afford.Greene, 2008, pp. 114–115.Calkins, 1997, p. 12. After the defeat at Fort Stedman, Lee knew that he could not detach part of his army and be able to maintain the defenses of Petersburg and Richmond. He also knew that Grant would soon move against the only remaining Confederate supply lines to Petersburg, the Southside Railroad and the Boydton Plank Road, beyond the end of his current defenses.Calkins, 1997, p. 16.
Grant's orders
Grant already had issued orders on March 24, 1865, for an offensive to begin on March 29 and was not deterred by the Battle of Fort Stedman. Grant planned for Sheridan's cavalry to cut the remaining open railroads, the Southside Railroad and the Richmond and Danville Railroad to Richmond, and for the infantry to turn the Confederates out of their positions if possible. On March 28, Grant told Sheridan to lead his troops around the Confederate right flank and to fight the Confederates, with infantry support, if the Confederates came out of their trenches.Greene, 2008, p. 152. Otherwise, Sheridan should wreck the railroads as much as possible and either return to the Petersburg lines or join Sherman in North Carolina at his discretion.Sheridan had no desire or intention to go to North Carolina. Grant assured him that was not Grant's plan and Sheridan had the discretion to join Sherman only if he needed it. Greene, 2008, p. 151.Hess, 2009, pp. 254–255.
Grant ordered two corps of the Army of the Potomac, the V Corps under Major General Gouverneur K. Warren and the II Corps under Major General Andrew A. Humphreys, to support Sheridan on his right flank, to the east of his objectives. Grant wanted these infantry corps to outflank the Confederates in their defenses and prevent them from interfering with Sheridan's mission, pushing them back to their lines if they came out to fight. Warren's corps initially also was ordered to seize Dinwiddie Court House, Virginia, which also would capture a portion of the Boydton Plank Road at that location, but later that task was given to Sheridan.