Third Battle of Petersburg: The Final Morning

The Third Battle of Petersburg, fought on April second, eighteen sixty-five, was the day the war's outcome became mathematically certain. It lasted a single morning, and when it was over, Robert E. Lee had no more options.

Grant ordered the assault for four forty in the morning, sending roughly sixty thousand Union troops against a Confederate line that had been stripped thin to cover the Five Forks disaster the day before. The Union Sixth Corps, under General Horatio Wright, punched through the Confederate right flank near the Boydton Plank Road within minutes of the assault beginning. They rolled up Confederate units from the side and rear, creating chaos that cascaded down the line.

Lee himself was nearly captured. He was at his headquarters at Edge Hill when Union troops reached the road behind him, and he had to move under fire. His aide Charles Venable described Lee standing calmly on the porch as shells struck nearby, watching the collapse through field glasses.

Among the Confederate dead that morning was Ambrose Powell Hill, one of Lee's most trusted corps commanders, shot by two Union stragglers while riding to find his troops. Lee reportedly said when he received the news: he is now at rest, and we who are left are the ones to suffer.

By mid-morning the Confederates had retreated into Petersburg's inner defensive works. Lee sent his telegram to Jefferson Davis around ten thirty in the morning: I see no prospect of doing more than holding our position here till night. Davis received the message in church. The evacuation of Richmond began that evening. Petersburg itself fell the following morning, April third, when Union troops walked into the city unopposed.