NY Times 4-8-1865
150 years ago today the Union army defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Sailor’s Creek
From Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant (in chapters 65 and 66):
I then started with a few of my staff and a very small escort of cavalry, going directly through the woods, to join Meade’s army. The distance was about sixteen miles; but the night being dark our progress was slow through the woods in the absence of direct roads. However, we got to the outposts about ten o’clock in the evening, and after some little parley convinced the sentinels of our identity and were conducted in to where Sheridan was bivouacked. We talked over the situation for some little time, Sheridan explaining to me what he thought Lee was trying to do, and that Meade’s orders, if carried out, moving to the right flank, would give him the coveted opportunity of escaping us and putting us in rear of him.
We then together visited Meade, reaching his headquarters about midnight. I explained to Meade that we did not want to follow the enemy; we wanted to get ahead of him, and that his orders would allow the enemy to escape, and besides that, I had no doubt that Lee was moving right then. Meade changed his orders at once. They were now given for an advance on Amelia Court House, at an early hour in the morning, as the army then lay; that is, the infantry being across the railroad, most of it to the west of the road, with the cavalry swung out still farther to the left.
The Appomattox, going westward, takes a long sweep to the south-west from the neighborhood of the Richmond and Danville Railroad bridge, and then trends north-westerly. Sailor’s Creek, an insignificant stream, running northward, empties into the Appomattox between the High Bridge and Jetersville. Near the High Bridge the stage road from Petersburg to Lynchburg crosses the Appomattox River, also on a bridge. The railroad runs on the north side of the river to Farmville, a few miles west, and from there, recrossing, continues on the south side of it. The roads coming up from the south-east to Farmville cross the Appomattox River there on a bridge and run on the north side, leaving the Lynchburg and Petersburg Railroad well to the left.
Lee, in pushing out from Amelia Court House, availed himself of all the roads between the Danville Road and Appomattox River to move upon, and never permitted the head of his columns to stop because of any fighting that might be going on in his rear. In this way he came very near succeeding in getting to his provision trains and eluding us with at least part of his army.
As expected, Lee’s troops had moved during the night before, and our army in moving upon Amelia Court House soon encountered them. There was a good deal of fighting before Sailor’s Creek was reached. Our cavalry charged in upon a body of theirs which was escorting a wagon train in order to get it past our left. A severe engagement ensued, in which we captured many prisoners, and many men also were killed and wounded. There was as much gallantry displayed by some of the Confederates in these little engagements as was displayed at any time during the war, notwithstanding the sad defeats of the past week.
The armies finally met on Sailor’s Creek, when a heavy engagement took place, in which infantry, artillery and cavalry were all brought into action. Our men on the right, as they were brought in against the enemy, came in on higher ground, and upon his flank, giving us every advantage to be derived from the lay of the country. Our firing was also very much more rapid, because the enemy commenced his retreat westward and in firing as he retreated had to turn around every time he fired. The enemy’s loss was very heavy, as well in killed and wounded as in captures. Some six general officers fell into our hands in this engagement, and seven thousand men were made prisoners. This engagement was commenced in the middle of the afternoon of the 6th, and the retreat and pursuit were continued until nightfall, when the armies bivouacked upon the ground where the night had overtaken them.
Shelby Foote[1] wrote about one of captured Confederate generals:
No wonder, then, that a Federal colonel visiting Sheridan’s headquarters that evening found Richard Ewell “sitting on the ground hugging his knees, with his face bent down between his arms.” Old Bald Head now bore little resemblance to the self he had been when he was Stonewall Jackson’s mainstay, two years ago in the Shenandoah Valley. “Our cause is lost. Lee should surrender before more lives are wasted,” he was reported to have told his captors. watching him, the colonel remarked that “if anything could add force to his words, the utter despondency of his air would do it.”
- [1]Foote, Shelby. The Civil War, A Narrative. Vol. 3. Red River to Appomattox. New York: Random House, 1986. Print. page 919.↩
