Lee's Last Campaign

by J. C. Gorman

I was standing where I could view the whole encounter. The Confederate line to the left of the run was not attacked. The creek divided us, and the struggle was going on on one hill while we were on the opposite, about half a mile apart, anxious and breathless witnesses.

As soon as Mahone fell the Federals, in three lines, moved on fort Gregg, with cheers. In the immediate vicinity all else was silent. How confidently, and in what beautiful lines they advance! As they near the fort their line curves into a circle. They are within fifty yards, and not the flash of a single rifle yet defies them. My God! have the boys surrendered without a struggle? We look to see if the sign of a white flag can be seen. At this instant it seems to gleam in the sun-light, and sends a pang to our hearts. But no; it is the white smoke of their guns, while cannoneers and infantry simultaneously fire on the confident assaulters, who stagger, reel under their death-dealing volley, and in a moment the Federal lines are broken and they retreat in masses under cover. A loud and wild cheer succeeds the breathless stillness that prevailed amongst us, and is answered exultingly by the heroic little garrison in fort Gregg. But reinforcements have come to the help of the assaulters. I can see their long serpentine lines as they wind their way through the cleared fields in the distance, and over the captured works. I turned and looked to our rear, but no reinforcements were seen coming to the succor of the garrison. Every man is needed at his post, and no reserves are at hand. The repulsed assailants, animated by the sight of reinforcements, reform, and, as their comrades come up in battle array, march forth again in unbroken ranks. As they gain the hill-top, two hundred yards from the fort, the artillery within the fort belches forth from the embrasures, and the effect of its canister can be plainly seen in the heaps of dead and dying that strew the ground. But the check is only momentary. As the next line advances they move forward in serried ranks, and soon the fort is canopied in smoke. We can see the artillery as it fires in rapid succession, and the small arms pop and crack in a ceaseless rattle. The conflict elsewhere ceases, and both sides are silent and anxious witnesses of the struggle at the fort. Thus the fight continues for half hour. The Federals have reached the ditch. They climb up the sides of the works, and, as the foremost reach the top, we can see them reel and fall headlong on their comrades below. Once, twice and thrice have they reached the top, only to be repulsed, and yet they persevere, and the artillery in the embrasures continue to fire in rapid succession. But, at last, all is hushed! The artillery once more, and for the last time, fire a parting shot, and we can see the Federals as with impunity they mount the works and begin a rapid fire on the defenders within. Their ammunition is exhausted, and, unwilling to surrender, they are using their bayonets and clubbing their guns in an unequal struggle. At last one loud huzza proclaims the fort lost, and with it the Confederate army cut into two parts. Generals Heth and Wilcox were in the fort, cheered the men to the last, and, at the minute of its surrender, mounted their steeds, dashed through the sally-port and retreated to the rear. I have since learned that 280 of the garrison, of a little over 300, were killed and wounded.

As soon as the fort was captured the Federal signal corps were at work, and the cannonading and sharpshooting was renewed on the other parts of the line. In a moment heavy bodies of cavalry were seen emerging from the Federals’ former lines, poured rapidly over the captured works and galloped in squadrons towards the Appomattox, which was some four or five miles off. Their track could be traced by the heavy columns of black smoke that rose from the various farmhouses on their route, which had been set on fire. The infantry which had succeeded in capturing the fort formed line fronting the Confederates’ right flank, and looked as if they intended marching by the rear into Petersburg. New dispositions were also made along the Confederate line. Regiments were detached from their positions along the line (whose place had to be filled by deployment by those who remained) and sent to the right flank and rear, confronting the new line of the Federals. Artillery galloped into position, and soon Fields’ division, with the Texans in the lead, joined the right flank and formed a defensive line to the rear towards the river. A narrow creek only divided the opposing forces, but the Federals seemed satisfied with their success now and did not advance. A heavy artillery fire was, however, kept up from the new lines until dark.

This fire enfiladed the position of our brigade on the right, (as we occupied the angle of the line,) and annoyed us a great deal, and we all awaited with eagerness the coming of night, and the setting of the seemingly dilatory sun.

All now felt that Petersburg was gone, and that to-morrow would find the Confederates, if permitted, on the north side of the Appomattox.

From the fall of Gregg, huge columns of smoke burst from numberless depots and warehouses of Petersburg, where Confederate supplies were stored, and when night closed in the air was luminous with the steady glare of burning buildings in the city, and to the right; all night long, at intervals, all along the line, cannonading was kept up, and at 12 o’clock the Confederates began their retreat. By 3 a. m. Gordon’s whole corps, except a few pickets and stragglers, were safely across the river, and the bridge on fire.

The Confederates passed through Petersburg in silence and dejection. Huge bolts from the enemy’s batteries were crashing through the buildings, but they marched heedlessly on without hurry or trepidation. No one but soldiers were in the streets, and but few houses gave evidence of being inhabited. Sometimes females would approach at the windows of different houses and ask, in a plaintive and supplicative tone, “Boys, are you going to leave us?” And you could see signs of sorrow and distress in their countenances. Some two or three were disposed to be merry, and changed our sympathies and fears in their behalf into carelessness, as they would tell us, “Good-bye, boys, we’ll drink pure coffee with sugar in it to-morrow!—‘hard times come again no more!’” My command was one of the last that crossed the Pocahontas bridge, and by the time we had ascended the bluff, and stood upon high ground, the bridge across the Appomattox was in flames—rockets were ascending high in the air along the Federal lines, and loud huzzas from the trenches made the welkin ring.

At that time none knew or could guess at the intentions of Gen. Lee, and the darkness prevented us from knowing that the balance of our forces were already on the march, up the Appomattox. We rested a short while by the roadside in the vicinity of the bridge, and at the signal gun from a piece of artillery near by, which startled us by its suddenness and proximity, we were called to attention and followed our comrades who had preceded us up the river. That signal gun was a notice to others besides ourselves. By the time we had got under weigh, the heavily charged magazine of Cummins’ battery of siege guns, blew up, first lighting up the deep darkness of the night with its fierce and vivid glare, and then shaking the earth under our feet like the shock of an earthquake.—Fort Clifton’s magazine in a moment followed, and then it was taken up all along the line to Richmond. The scene was the fiercest and most imposing I ever witnessed. We left the light and pierced the midnight darkness of the rear. At each step we took some new explosion would occur, seemingly severer than the one that preceded it; the whole heavens in our rear were lit up in lurid glare, that added intensity to the blackness before us. It was as if the gases, chained in the earth, had at last found vent, and the general conflagration of the world was at hand, while we were retreating into the blackness of uncertain gloom and chaos. We then knew that Richmond had been left to the fate of Petersburg, and we were on a retreat to a new base.

On leaving Petersburg, Gordon’s corps took the river road; Mahone, with his division, and all other troops on this side of the James, the middle road, and Ewell and Elzey, with the Richmond garrison, and other troops, the road nearest the James river. During the day following the evacuation of Petersburg the Confederates made good progress, their route unimpeded by wagons and artillery. But after the junction of Gordon’s corps with Mahone and Early, with thirty miles of wagons, containing the special plunder of the Post Doctors, Quartermasters and Post Commissaries of Richmond, they went at a snail’s pace, and it would have been no trouble for an enterprising enemy to have overtaken them. Until they arrived at Amelia Courthouse, on the 4th of April, although a body of the enemy had followed them up, no attack had been made, and it was only after leaving the Courthouse that the first dash by Sheridan’s cavalry was made on their wagon trains.

At Amelia Courthouse they were joined by the remnants of A. P. Hill’s, Pickett’s and Longstreet’s commands which, on the right, by disastrous fighting, demoralization and desertion, had dwindled from thousands to hundreds. I have never yet seen an account of the operations of this part of the Confederate army.