George Armstrong Custer reined up his mount, raised his eyeglasses and peered westward down the railroad tracks toward Appomattox Station. His scouts had reported that several trains waited at the depot, their box cars crammed with supplies for the approaching Army of Northern Virginia. Lee’s troops were marching to this location as fast as possible in hopes of securing foodstuffs to enable their escape from the pursuing Federals. It was late in the day, April 8, 1865.
Escape? Pursuit? What had brought the armies to this rural Virginia countryside far from Petersburg and Richmond? After the Army of the Potomac had encircled its foe and both sides entrenched around the two cities in the fall of 1864, what developments had caused their evacuation that saw pursuer and prey racing down country lanes to Appomattox?
Over the winter and into mid-March, Lee’s army had been continually stretched as Grant extended his left wing to cut the Rebel supply lines to the southwest of Petersburg. All of Grant’s movements had been parried by Lee, but the extension of his trenches meant fewer Confederates could defend each section. The Rebel general knew something dramatic was required before flight became inevitable. He planned an offensive for March 25 designed to break through the Union lines, penetrate all the way to Grant’s supply base at City Point on the James River and cause the Federals to lessen their pressure on his railroad lifeline. The point of assault would be Fort Stedman, part of the Union’s entrenchments along the Appomattox River east of Petersburg.
The position of the Second Michigan Infantry lay between Fort Stedman and Battery 9. The men lived in holes in the ground covered by shelter tents, scarce protection from the fire of two enemy guns positioned across the river in front of the First Michigan Sharpshooters to the right. On the evening of March 24, Captain John C. Hardy of Detroit went out on picket with six posts of six men each. The wind was blowing stiffly from east to west, from the Union to the Confederate side, obscuring any noises in the Rebel works. Customarily, firing would continue all night every so often. At 1:00 a.m., all gunfire ceased. Hardy became suspicious of the quietude. He ordered a shot fired from each picket post every three minutes to guard against a surprise. He also ordered men to crawl out of their pits and listen for any movement.
John C. Hardy enlisted April 20, 1861, and was an eastern and western theater veteran. He earned brevet captain on March 25, 1865, for conspicuous gallantry in an attack on Fort Stedman.
At 3:30 a.m., no longer content to wait on whether his premonition might be false, Hardy made his way back to alert the whole regiment that something was up. Some soldiers came running into the line without shoes or hats. Once gathered, it dawned on them that Fort Stedman had already been taken stealthily by a Rebel advance. Pickets were ordered in, and Hardy made his way to brigade headquarters through groups of gray soldiers who were rousting other Union soldiers from their sleep. Brigade commander Ralph Ely of Alma was informed of the situation and advised to proceed along the riverbank to where the First Sharpshooters lay, thus evading contact and enabling a surprise counterattack. Hardy made it back to the regiment and found it had taken refuge in Battery 9, prepared to reclaim Fort Stedman.
Once the brigade got into action, the Second Michigan found itself fired on from both directions. Other Union troops could not distinguish friend from foe in the predawn darkness. When daylight arrived soon after seven o’clock, and the Stars and Stripes could be plainly seen flying from the Battery, Union guns were trained solely on Fort Stedman and its Confederate occupants. A combination of artillery and small arms fire punished the Confederates; many began to flee back to the safety of their own trenches. A call went out for volunteers to “cut off the johnnies” and, with twenty-five men, Hardy dashed toward the fort. Finding a number of Rebels holed up, he called on them to surrender or be fired upon; with discretion the better part of valor, thirty-five Confederates surrendered. In total, over three hundred were captured by the regiment.211 The fort was back in Union hands; Lee’s final attempt at a strategic reversal had failed.
It was now apparent to Grant that the time was right to attempt his own breakthrough. On March 29, he began to apply pressure and, on April 3, reaped the reward when the Rebel lines in front of Petersburg were pierced. Union troops fanned out in both directions from the gap, taking prisoners and rolling up the Rebel defenses. Lee had to withdraw, and his only option was to pull the army out of the trenches and head west and then south in a forced march to link up with Johnston’s force across the North Carolina border. The first blue-clad troops to enter Petersburg were the Second Michigan Infantry and the First Michigan Sharpshooters, which around four o’clock in the morning were into the city limits. At twenty-eight minutes after the hour, Michigan soldiers raised the American flag above the courthouse for the first time in four years. Major Clement Lounsberry of Marengo accepted a flag of truce from city leaders, signifying their surrender of the town.212 Petersburg was in Federal hands, and Richmond would fall within a short time.
The Second Infantry raises the U.S. flag over the Petersburg custom house on April 3, 1865.
As Lee desperately marched the army westward, hoping to elude his pursuers before they could prevent his link-up with Johnston, on his heels both north and south of the Appomattox River were Federal infantry and cavalry. At Sailor’s Creek on April 6, a significant part of the Army of Northern Virginia was cut off and encircled.213 Custer’s Michigan brigade of cavalry participated under the command of Colonel Peter Stagg of Trenton, since the Boy General had moved up the ladder to division command. Lee’s losses were devastating, nearly eight thousand men and eight generals. His army, now reduced to thirty thousand troops, continued westward in search of food and supplies on its altered and desperate escape route. Federal infantry kept nipping at his rear guard north of the river; south of it was Federal cavalry followed by more foot soldiers in blue.
On April 7, Lee hoped to secure food for his footsore and hungry troops at Farmville and then cross the river, burn the bridges and leave Grant high and dry. Before the supplies could be distributed and cooked, though, Union troops appeared on the same side of the river, east of the village, forcing Lee put his troops into battle until dark. The still-famished and fatigued army then began marching west again, toward Appomattox Courthouse and its nearby train depot, where food supplies would await them. Many had not eaten in a week. As an embedded New York Times correspondent put it while riding with the pursuers, Lee was “now making indecent haste toward Lynchburgh [sic], with the whole of Grant’s army at his heels and left flank.”214 Who would reach the depot at Appomattox first?
A ghostly image of George Allen, Twenty-sixth Infantry (Whitewater Township), who enlisted at age eighteen. He was killed in action in Farmville, Virginia, on April 7, 1865, two days before Lee’s surrender.
On April 8, then, Custer knew he had won the race to the station. As he spied the locomotives sitting under steam at the depot, Custer knew that their capture could deprive Lee of his only hope at escape. The twenty-five-yearold general ordered his troopers into action, and between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., an advance was made to capture the station.
The Times reporter would soon send a dispatch recounting the outcome:
Appomattox Station. Saturday, April, 8—10 o’clock p.m.
I have just witnessed another brilliant and successful dash by Gen. Custer, at the head of the Third Cavalry Division…The cavalry left camp near Prospect Station this morning…When the advance guard…had arrived within two miles of the station, it was ascertained that there were several supply trains on the track and a park of artillery in the vicinity. The advance…made a dash upon the station. Some 300 rebel soldiers made for the woods without firing a shot, leaving upon the main track and switches three large freight trains and one other train with locomotives attached and steam up. The engineer attempted to run the train off, but upon call moved the trains back to the depot again. Men were at once found…capable of running engines, who were detached to take the trains…to a place of safety. Three long trains filled with supplies of all kinds were thus run off before the enemy could recover from their first surprise, and a fourth was subsequently burned, with the depot.
The credit of stopping the trains is immediately due to Lieut. Norvall [Churchill], of Custer’s Staff, who, being with the advance guard, saw the trains moving off, and taking half-a-dozen men, dashed up to the advanced locomotive, and brought the train to a standstill, by firing a couple of shots at the engineer. Norvall then run the trains back.215
Three hundred thousand provisions had been captured, enough to supply Lee’s army for days. Without them, the Southerners were done in. To secure the railroad, Custer turned his attention on the Rebel artillery battalion protecting the trains and depot. He personally guided several assaults: “All the while, the general rode up and down the line, exposing himself to enemy fire, and cheering his soldiers on.”216 In a final charge, the Confederates were overcome. Custer’s force captured thirty artillery pieces, a thousand prisoners and 150 to 200 wagons. Those cannons and wagons that did escape fled to the west, critically away from Lee. Custer’s superior, Phil Sheridan, sent Grant a dispatch at 9:20 p.m., advising of the action: “Custer, who had the advance, made a dash at the station, capturing four trains of supplies with locomotives. One of the trains was burned and the others were run back to Farmville for security.”217 The day’s—and night’s—action had paved the way for the encounter the following day, April 9, between Grant’s cavalry and infantry, interposed from the west between the station and Lee’s bedraggled soldiers at Appomattox Courthouse and the remainder of the Federal forces pinching from the east. Trapped, without provisions, nothing was left but surrender.
Lee’s capitulation ended the main force in the field sustaining Confederate hopes for independence. It also meant the release of Federal prisoners accompanying Lee’s army, who lacked food as much as their captors. A moving account was written by Major Farnham Lyon of Grand Rapids, quartermaster of the Seventh Michigan Cavalry, soon after the surrender:
I was ordered by General Sheridan to look up the cavalry train and bring it up, and was informed that it was in the rear of the Sixth Corps, which was directly opposite, in the rear of the enemy…When about two miles inside the Rebel camp I met the prisoners captured from us. When they saw my red necktie, which General Custer and staff always wore, one said, “There’s one of Custer’s staff officers,” then such a shout as went up from two thousand Union throats is not heard every day.218
That shout expressed the emotions of many in the North who would soon be engaging in celebrations of a similar nature.
A ceremony took place just a few days afterward, on April 14, far to the South. United States forces had recaptured Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor in February. Lincoln ordered that on this Friday, the fourth anniversary of the surrender of the fort, the same flag that had been struck would be hoisted above the ramparts, signifying the restoration of United States authority. Robert Anderson, now a retired general, was present and spoke emotionally about the ultimate triumph that had taken so long and at such cost. Standing nearby, in attendance at Anderson’s invitation, was another retired officer: Norman Hall. In 1932, a marker would be erected “by the United States…In memory of the Garrison Defending Fort Sumter during the bombardment April 12–14, 1861.” Listed at the top was “Major Robert Anderson, First U.S. Artillery, commanding”; not far down is found this name: “2nd Lieut. Norman J. Hall.”
A broadside orders “Every Man, Woman, and Child” to attend a celebration of victory at in Detroit upon Lee’s surrender.
April 14 was fateful. That evening, at Ford’s Theater in the nation’s capital, John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln. As Booth escaped and fled southward, Michigan troops were brought into the dragnet. The Michigan Cavalry Brigade was ordered into the search and patrolled the countryside between Washington, D.C., and halfway to Fredericksburg.219 Within a few days, Booth was trapped and killed. Other participants in the plot were apprehended, and two officers of the Seventeenth Infantry (the Stonewall Regiment), Major Richard A. Watts of Adrian and Captain Christian Rath of Jackson, “rendered important service during the imprisonment, trial, and execution” of the conspirators.220 Rath is said to have put the noose on one of the prisoners, Mrs. Mary Surratt, the first female executed by the U.S. government.221
After Lee’s surrender and the Lincoln assassination, forces under Johnston surrendered to Sherman in North Carolina. Confederate president Davis, however, did not give up. With the remnants of his government, he tried to escape to the Florida coast in a ship bound for Texas. Near Irwinville, Georgia—not terribly far from Andersonville—the 4th Michigan Cavalry discovered Davis’s camp and, after a brief fight, took the Confederate leader prisoner. Colonel Benjamin Pritchard of Allegan County commanded the troops; the University of Michigan–trained lawyer was rewarded with promotion:222 “The 4th gained a national reputation and a world-wide notoriety by the capture of Davis. It was the accomplishment of an eminently special and important duty, for the nation, so distinctive and definite in its character, as to render a like service impossible, giving it a place in the history of the war without a parallel.”223
Julian G. Dickinson, Fourth Cavalry (Jackson), earned brevet captain, U.S. Volunteers, on May 10, 1865, for meritorious services in the capture of Jefferson Davis.
The action effectively terminated any prospect for continued existence of the Confederate government and prevented Davis, an unyielding secessionist, from acting as president in exile—temporary or otherwise.
Sheet music cover for “Flight and Capture of Jeff. Davis” by Wolf Erine, Detroit. It was dedicated to “Old Michigan.”
The end of the great national crisis had arrived, and the “last embers of the southern republic had been stamped out.”224 The cost had been frightful. More than 90,000 Michiganders had gone off to serve their country during the four years of the American Civil War, and over 14,500 never came home—more than 1 in every 7, a figure that averages to nearly 10 deaths for each day of the war. Some of those fatalities came with great cruelty, and none more terribly than on the night of April 27, 1865, aboard a Mississippi River vessel. The steamer Sultana had taken on many hundreds of passengers more than its capacity, bearing Union troops northward to their friends and loved ones. The war-weary soldiers did not fear: images of home and hearth beckoned. At 2:00 a.m., near Memphis, the overloaded boiler exploded, the boat caught fire and the vessel sank all too rapidly. Nearly 2,000 died—almost 300 of them from Michigan units on the verge of their safe passage from the front.225
The SS Sultana with soldiers—many from Michigan—crowded on board before the disaster on April 27, 1865.
Now that it was finished, no Northern state proportionally had suffered more deaths from military service in the war. Of the states with the greatest casualties as a proportion of total population, Michigan was among the top four with Illinois, Indiana and Iowa. The Twenty-fourth Michigan Infantry suffered a casualty rate of 80 percent on one hallowed battleground, “giving it the melancholy honor of the highest loss of any Federal regiment for the three days at Gettysburg.”226 The Twenty-second Michigan Infantry suffered losses of 85 percent at Chickamauga. Michigan units had been among those that sacrificed, in both the western and the eastern theaters, as much or more as any other unit from any other state.
Yes, the war was over. The Confederacy had been defeated; the Union had been preserved; slavery in America had been dealt a deathblow. Through it all, Michigan troops had served, fought, suffered, bled and died. At home, Michiganders had done their part. No one could quibble: Michigan had made “her great and bloody sacrifice for the Nation’s life.”227
