Battle of Dinwiddie Court House: The Road to Five Forks

On March thirty-first, eighteen sixty-five, a Confederate cavalry force under General George Pickett briefly pushed Union cavalry back through the crossroads village of Dinwiddie Court House, Virginia, and for a few hours it looked as though Robert E. Lee might have bought himself another reprieve. He had not.

The battle was part of the final Union push to cut the last supply line feeding Petersburg, the South Side Railroad. Ulysses Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan's cavalry and the Fifth Corps infantry to swing around the Confederate right flank and seize the road junction known as Five Forks. Pickett counterattacked at Dinwiddie Court House with around ten thousand men, driving Sheridan's troopers back toward the village itself.

But Sheridan understood something Pickett did not. Sheridan had reinforcements on the way, and a commander in Grant who would not stop. Rather than retreating further, Sheridan rallied his force and held through the afternoon. That night, Pickett pulled his men back north to Five Forks to establish a defensive line.

The next day, April first, Grant's forces struck Five Forks. Pickett was away from his command attending a shad bake when the Union assault hit, a detail so astonishing that historians still debate whether the picnic was a dereliction or merely irrelevant given the odds. The Confederate line shattered. Grant ordered a full assault on the Petersburg lines the following morning, April second. Lee telegraphed Jefferson Davis that Richmond must be evacuated. The Confederate capital fell on April third, and Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April ninth.

Dinwiddie Court House was where the endgame began: the last offensive action of Lee's army, and the last moment Lee could claim he had a chance.