The final footsteps of the Civil War

Follow the paths used by soldiers from the North and South as they battled across Virginia.

By ROBERT N. JENKINS
Published March 27, 2005

APPOMATTOX, Va. - Historians are about to note the 140th anniversary of the end of the Civil War, the event that shaped the United States more than any since. A network of signposts, each with its own radio broadcast, makes it simple for everyone to trace the desperate retreat from Richmond of its defending troops, up to their surrender outside this town.

It was April 2, 1865, when the war's most charismatic general ordered his men to leave the Confederate capital, blowing up their Navy's ironclad ships as they left. Seven days later, a weary Robert E. Lee surrendered the depleted Army of Northern Virginia, in this village of barely a dozen buildings.

Though other Southern officers continued to lead troops in scattered fights for a couple of months, Lee had been promoted in late January to commanding general, Confederate States Armies. His surrender to Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the parlor of the Appomattox Court House on April 9 signaled the end of Southerners' efforts to create a separate nation.

In four years of fighting, about 630,000 soldiers had been killed, another million or so wounded.

A former commandant of West Point and a U.S. Army colonel when the Civil War began in April 1861, Lee was an idealistic man. He resigned his commission because he did not want to "raise my hand against my relatives . . . to draw my sword" against the North, he wrote to his sister that month.

But once the war began, the Virginia native did not want to lose to the Union, either.

Within days of resigning from the U.S. Army, Lee was named a general in the Confederate Army. With a few notable exceptions, he would prove to be a clever strategist, determined and courageous. His soldiers idolized him - he was often called Uncle Bobby Lee, or Marse Robert, when he rode among them.

It was his huge loss of troops at Gettysburg, however, that determined the South would never again be able to successfully mount offensive operations.

Instead, in the spring of 1864, Grant launched numerous attacks in Virginia, which included some of the bloodiest battles yet. His objectives were, first, to take Petersburg, a railroad hub that fed supplies to Richmond less than 25 miles north, and then to take the capital by force or by siege.

Both armies maneuvered toward Petersburg, but the Confederates won the race and moved into safety behind earthwork defenses - trenches, in front of which the excavated dirt was piled and reinforced with logs.

These earthworks stretched around Petersburg and all the way to Richmond.

So Grant laid siege to Petersburg. His troops built their own earthworks opposite those of the Confederates. This stalemate was to last for 91/2 months.

Lee was pinned down, defending the two cities, while Union forces were winning significant battles elsewhere.

Grant continued to tighten the noose around Petersburg and on April 1, 1865, Union forces seized Lee's last railroad supply line south of the city. The next day, blue-coated soldiers stormed over the earthworks at Petersburg, and that night Lee abandoned the city to retreat to the southwest.

He had one last chance: If he could escape across the rolling countryside of his beloved Virginia and link his army of about 60,000 with Confederate troops in North Carolina, the combined force could stand up to Grant's army and possibly force the war-weary North into a truce.

It was a desperate gamble. With Grant's forces - almost twice as numerous - in close pursuit, the race was on.

The Southerners were engaged in a fighting retreat, hampered by having to find routes over creeks swollen by spring rains. Their supplies were intercepted, so they had to scavenge for food.

In isolated hamlets that hadn't seen combat in the war's four years, suddenly soldiers were staging skirmishes or pitched battles. No building was off-limits, no crossroads too insignificant:

* There was fighting by cavalry around the isolated Namozine Church, perhaps 20 miles west of Petersburg, on April 3. The following day, there was a skirmish at Tabernacle Church.

* A much larger battle April 6, at a road junction in Holt's Corner, forced Lee to send some troops to the north, in the opposite direction he was headed.

* That same day, the home of a farmer was converted to a field hospital where the sides battled on a hill near Sayler's Creek. This battle cost Lee eight of his generals and about a fourth of his troops.

* On April 7, about 15 miles away, Southern troops were able to burn four spans of the High Bridge over the Appomattox River but were driven off before they could destroy the wagon bridge beneath. That provided Northern troops with an easy way to pursue the Southerners.

Over rolling countryside, they were hounding Lee's forces - men who had to realize what it meant to have abandoned their capital.

On April 8, Lee sent a letter to Grant suggesting the two meet to talk about declaring peace. Before Grant responded, his troops captured four trainloads of Confederate supplies and 25 cannon.

On the morning of April 9, the two sides clashed again, the Battle of Appomattox Court House. Casualties reached about 500 men. Lee realized he was surrounded on three sides, with no practical chance for escape. The two generals met for about 90 minutes in the early afternoon, in a three-story home in the village of Appomattox Court House.

It had taken a week of battles to cover roughly 95 miles from Richmond; Lee has something less than 30,000 soldiers, Grant about twice that many, still.

Now, you can drive past fields of corn and tidy farms to more than two dozen points along the Confederates' route. You can stop to listen on your car radio to recorded descriptions of what took place in front of you.

The various spots, including all those mentioned above, are marked by large white signs erected by the state of Virginia. Each sign has a map locating your position and an interpretation explaining why this place was significant. An AM radio station broadcasts more narration of the events.

Historians note that the Southern forces were split, planning to rendezvous in the west. The excellent From Petersburg to Appomattox guidebook presents seven driving routes to follow.

While most of the actual roads the soldiers used have been paved, they traverse largely rural and little-developed areas. The terrain is likely as those men would have seen it.

But you must use your imagination when standing on the shoulder of a two-lane blacktop, cars whizzing by, as you look toward trees and a rail fence and consider: Out there, hundreds or thousands of bone-weary commoners yet again fired their rifles at other men they never would have encountered, except for the Civil War.

Robert N. Jenkins can be reached at 727 893-8496 or jenkins@sptimes.com

GETTING THERE: Several airlines have connecting service from Tampa Bay to Richmond, where rental cars are available.

FOLLOWING THE RETREAT: The easiest way to follow the general line of retreat is to use either the state of Virginia's free map, which notes 27 places to stop, look and listen, or for the true military buff, to buy a copy of Chris M. Calkins' From Petersburg to Appomattox, a 48-page, magazine-sized paperback guide with detailed maps, photos and histories of major units on both sides.

Calkins, a native of this region of Virginia, is chief historian at the Petersburg National Battlefield and is author or co-author of several detailed books about the area during the war. Driving tours start at this site; be sure to chat with the always-knowledgeable rangers, and ask for tips on preferred routes. You can also buy a CD or tape that elaborates on the retreat, as you follow the map from place to place.

These various maps offer routes that can easily be covered in less than a day, but you ought to take time to contemplate the events that unfolded on the land before you. And you want to look around, too. Maybe you'll find Jimmy Olgers at his general store-turned-museum. It is a few yards from the information sign at Sutherland Station, the second stop on the Retreat map, just off U.S. 460.

In truth, the place is more storage shed than museum, with old Elvis posters, newspapers shouting the death of FDR, campaign signs and even a few displays of Civil War artifacts such as minnie balls. But Olgers, 63, doesn't care about the unclassified collections, nor does he apparently say "No" to anything offered.

Good for several pages in the 1998 bestseller Confederates in the Attic, Olgers is a Dixie raconteur. This massive man - you know there is a chair beneath him, you just can't see it - holds court on the sagging front porch, several cronies nodding sagely and laughing dryly on cue, as he recounts the past both recent and distant.

Olgers can, as he occasionally says about others, "talk the horns off a goat."

For the state's free map and related items, go to www.virginia.org/site/main.asp?Referrer=publications&id=35&ref=brochure Calkins' From Petersburg to Appomattox, published by the Farmville Herald, is $4.95. It is sold at the park's visitor center, or can be ordered by calling 1-434-352-2136.

EVENTS: Among the several commemorations of the 140th anniversary are those near the surrender site. Re-enactments, living history programs and demonstrations of camp life will take place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., April 8-10, about a half-mile east of the town of Appomattox, which is less than 5 miles from the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park. Admission is $10 for adults and $5; the site is wheelchair accessible.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: A detailed account of what author Jay Winik subtitled "The Month That Saved America" is April 1865 (Perennial, $14.95 in paperback). Winik, a historian and Foreign Service veteran, does bring this complex and dramatic era to life, though his writing can be trite. The book includes maps, an index and 59 pages of footnotes.

Contact the Appomattox Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Center: 434 352-2621; or Appomattox Parks, Recreation & Tourism: 434 352-5996; E-mail to acrd@earthlink.net Web site: www.appomattox.com

[Last modified March 25, 2005, 10:50:03]