Twenty-three

Five Forks

 

Sheridan’s Shenandoah campaign had effectively ended the war in the Valley, with much of the credit showered on the cavalry. Battle after battle had been won, which all but guaranteed Lincoln’s reelection and made a national hero out of Phil Sheridan.1

George Armstrong Custer had proved himself to be an extraordinarily effective commander, who had made the transition from a brigade to a division without missing a beat. He had also demonstrated that he was not an impetuous loose cannon, but a man with an inherent talent and skill for sizing up the weaknesses of his enemy and exploiting it for his benefit. And, as had been his custom throughout the war, Custer showed that he was not an ambulance officer who viewed his troops in battle from some rear echelon position; rather, he was a fearless leader who chose to ride at the front of his men as they charged into the enemy’s line of fire.2

Colonel Henry Capehart, a member of the Third Cavalry Division and future Medal of Honor winner, summed up Custer’s actions by later writing, “I have seen him under the most varying and critical circumstances, and never without ample resources of mind and body to meet the most trying contingency. He was counted by some rash; it was because he dared while they dared not … If I were to begin giving instances of his daring, brilliancy, and skill, I should never stop.”3

In spite of recent successes, the war was not by any means won. Skirmishes with Jubal Early and the torching of the Shenandoah continued for several more weeks until both armies more or less settled in for the winter.4

Custer sent for Libbie, who arrived on November 6, and the couple took up residence in a mansion called Long Meadow located four miles south of Winchester, the town where Phil Sheridan had moved his headquarters. Shortly after Libbie’s arrival, another family member joined them.5

Thomas Ward Custer, a wild and adventurous youth six years younger than brother Armstrong, had made an attempt to enlist in Monroe, Michigan, at the outbreak of the war. His father had spoiled those plans by alerting the recruiter that Tom was only sixteen years old—too young by two years. Tom was not to be denied. On September 2, 1861, he had snuck across the border to New Rumley, Ohio, and been sworn in as a private in the Twenty-first Ohio Infantry.

Tom had fought as a common foot soldier for the next three years in such battles as Shiloh, Stones River, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Chattanooga, and the Atlanta Campaign. He had distinguished himself enough to be promoted to corporal and orderly to Brigadier General James Scott Negley, and escort for Ulysses S. Grant, George Thomas, and James Palmer. He had been promoted to corporal on January 1, 1864.

Tom, however, craved the excitement and notoriety that the cavalry had provided for his famous brother. He recognized where real glory could be attained. After all, Autie had become a general at age twenty-three.

On October 23, 1864, Tom Custer received his commission as a second lieutenant from Colonel James Kidd of the Sixth Michigan, and, by virtue of Armstrong’s influence with Phil Sheridan, was assigned to his brother’s staff.6

The brothers were extremely close—Autie was the protector, and Tom worshiped his brother. This reunion was cause for elation and celebration. “We could not help spoiling him owing to his charm and our deep affection,” Libbie wrote of her and Armstrong’s conduct toward Tom.

On the other hand, Tom was not treated like a kid brother when on duty, and more than once complained that Armstrong yelled at him for “every little darned thing just because I happen to be his brother. If anyone thinks that it is a soft thing to be a commanding officer’s brother, he misses his guess.” Any charges of nepotism or doubt about Tom’s worthiness would be replaced with widespread admiration for his actions during the upcoming spring offensive.7

On November 8, while Armstrong and Tom caught up on the past several years of separation, President Abraham Lincoln was reelected, primarily due to the success of General Sheridan’s Shenandoah Campaign. His opponent was the still-popular former general George B. McClellan, who ran on a “Peace Platform,” arguing that Lincoln had needlessly prolonged the war. McClellan won only three states, and lost in electoral votes 212 to 12. One can only imagine the bittersweet taste in Custer’s mouth at the realization that his courageous actions had contributed to the defeat of McClellan, the man whom Custer had idolized like a father.

The Custer brothers were in the saddle on December 19 when Sheridan ordered a cavalry raid on the Orange & Alexandria Railroad at Gordonsville. At sundown on the twentieth, in the midst of a miserable sleet, Custer’s cavalry bivouacked at Lacy Springs, nine miles north of Harrisonburg and thirty miles north of Staunton.

Custer had been informed by residents when passing through New Market that Confederate cavalry had been observed in the area. He posted pickets and set reveille at 4:00 A.M. for a 6:30 march. The morning arrived with about five inches of fresh snow—accompanied by “sharp, short, fierce, bark like yells” followed by “a dull thunderous sound.” The Rebel cavalry commanded by Tom Rosser had ridden throughout the inclement night to attack the unsuspecting Federals.8

Brigadier General George Chapman’s brigade was scattered by the action. Custer bolted from his tent into the saddle without his coat, hat, or boots, and encouraged his men to charge. The action allowed Chapman’s brigade to regroup with enough strength to counterattack, which forced Rosser to withdraw. Custer set his losses at two dead, twenty-two wounded, and ten to twenty captured. He estimated that Rosser had lost from fifty to eighty killed or wounded and thirty captured.

Rosser’s daring attack, however, compelled Sheridan to call an end to the raid. The cavalrymen were ordered to return to Winchester and construct permanent winter quarters.9

The end of December also concluded Major General William T. Sherman’s “March to the Sea.” Sherman had taken Atlanta, Georgia, on September 2, which resulted in his being hailed a hero in the North, and he occupied that city for ten weeks while he rested his army. On November 15, Sherman departed Atlanta, and advanced through Georgia—wrecking supply depots and railroads, sacking government buildings, and destroying property. In addition to his army’s actions, he permitted marauding groups of men, called Bummers, to torch a pathway through the countryside up to sixty miles wide, leaving behind little more than debris and desolation, an excessive practice that earned lasting condemnation for Sherman and the Union in that state. On December 21—after 250 miles—Sherman completed his march by occupying the coastal city of Savannah.

Throughout that winter, Armstrong Custer and wife Libbie hosted and attended parties and dinners, and entertained and visited relatives. The “Michigan Brigade Ball” in early February reunited Custer with the officers and ladies of his former unit, who danced to the music of the Michigan Brigade band. Custer was observed by a fellow passenger on a train ride to visit Libbie’s family in Grand Rapids, “Genl Custer reminded me of Tennyson’s description of King Arthur … He is tall straight with light complexion, clear blue eyes, golden hair which hangs in curls on his shoulders.”10

One notable event in Custer’s spiritual life occurred on Sunday evening, February 5. The Custers attended a Week of Prayer service at the Monroe Presbyterian Church, and while Armstrong bowed in prayer, he underwent a conversion and became a born-again Christian. He penned a letter dated February 19 to Reverend D. C. Mattoon that read in part, “It was about this very hour two weeks ago tonight that I knelt with you and your family circle in Monroe. In your presence I accepted Christ as my Savior. I feel somewhat like the pilot of a vessel; who has been steering his ship upon familiar and safe waters but has been called upon to make a voyage fraught with danger. Having in safety and with success completed one voyage, he is imbued with confidence and renewed courage, and the second voyage is robbed of half its terror. So it is with me.”11

The pleasant winter respite ended on February 27 when Sheridan’s rejuvenated ten-thousand-man cavalry marched. Custer’s Third Cavalry Division had been dispatched ahead of the column to reconnoiter the area around Waynesborough. Freezing rain pelted the troopers, and the road was transformed into a muddy mire. Horses wallowed almost to their bellies, and wagons became stuck. Regardless, a determined Custer kept his men struggling forward.

At about three o’clock on March 2, Custer spied exactly what he had been seeking. Two thousand Confederates under Jubal Early—two infantry brigades, artillery, and Tom Rosser’s cavalry—were entrenched on a bend of the swollen South River.12

This position at first glance appeared insurmountable. Custer, however, eventually noticed one chink in Early’s armor—a gap between his left flank and the river. He ordered three regiments from Pennington’s First Brigade to dismount and sneak through the cover of thick timber to flank the Confederates on the left near the waterway. This detachment, armed with Spencer carbines, successfully moved to that position unseen by the enemy. Horse artillery was brought up to soften the lines. Custer then ordered his bugler, Joseph Fought, to sound the charge.

The flankers leaped from the timber to send a murderous volley into the rear of the startled enemy, while the other brigades followed the lead of their commander and tore across the muddy terrain directly toward Early’s positions. The Rebel line wavered and collapsed under the weight of Custer’s charge. Early’s men broke and ran, with Custer’s cavalrymen in hot pursuit.

“So sudden was our attack,” Custer wrote in his official report, “that but little time was offered for resistance.” Many battle-weary Rebels simply threw down their weapons and awaited the inevitable. Generals Early and Rosser narrowly escaped Custer’s well-executed attack.13

Within three hours’ time, the Third Cavalry Division had captured eighteen hundred prisoners, fourteen artillery pieces, nearly two hundred supply wagons, and seventeen battle flags. Amazingly, only nine Union cavalrymen had been killed or wounded in what Sheridan termed “this brilliant fight.”14

It was a crushing defeat for the Army of Northern Virginia, and another colorful feather in Custer’s overflowing war bonnet. Sheridan’s aide, Captain George B. Sanford, was present when Custer reported to his commander. “Up came Custer himself with his following,” Sanford later recalled. “And in the hands of his orderlies, one to each, were the seventeen battle flags streaming in the wind. It was a great spectacle and the sort of thing which Custer thoroughly enjoyed.”15

Sheridan’s troops then embarked upon an operation into the heart of Virginia. The men endured rainy weather, muddy roads, swollen waterways, and minor skirmishes with their enemy to tear through the countryside like a swarm of vengeful locusts—leaving behind a landscape of devastation and despair. Every vital piece of the Southern infrastructure or element of economic necessity in their pathway was either confiscated or reduced to smoldering ruins.

Railroad tracks were ripped up and cars demolished. Telegraph lines were cut. Bridges were blown up. Water tanks were drained. Boats and barges were sunk. Locks on the James River were wrecked. Cotton mills, foundries, lumber yards, great stores of tobacco, wheat, livestock, and any other source of income or sustenance were seized or burned to ashes. The mayor of Charlottesville turned over that town to Custer while the faculty of the University of Virginia stood nearby on their campus under a white flag.16

On March 18, the cavalry bivouacked at White House Landing on the Pamunkey River for a week of rest and recuperation spent mending equipment and readying the horses for the spring campaign.

Custer wrote to Libbie, “Our raid has been a chain of successes, and the 3rd Division has done all the fighting. I wish you could see your boy’s headquarters now. My flag is floating over the gate, and near it, ranged along the fences are 16 battle-flags, captured by the 3rd Division. Neither Genl. Sheridan nor Genl. Merritt within 10 miles when these captures are made. Nor did they know what I was doing. The 3rd stands higher than ever, in advance all the time.”17

After the battle at Waynesborough, Custer had knelt in prayer with Chaplain Theodore J. Holmes. Now, Holmes was leaving the service, and wrote a letter to Custer that was forwarded to Libbie. The chaplain wanted to thank Custer for “the privilege of the relation to you afforded the past few weeks, as it has enabled me to know you better, and has made me respect you even more heartily than before. I cannot express my gratefulness to the Almighty that He should have made you such a general and such a man. I rejoice with the 3rd Division, with the army, with the whole country in the splendid military genius that has your name glorious in the history of the war. But even more I rejoice in the position you have taken deliberately, and, I believe, finally, in regard to moral and religious life.”18

Libbie remained in Washington, where she enjoyed the companionship of Rebecca Richmond. On March 4, the two ladies were honored to stand near President Abraham Lincoln when he took the oath of office for his second term and delivered his address. Later, Libbie attended the inaugural ball at the patent office, escorted by Senator Zachariah Chandler.

But her husband was rarely out of her mind, especially the dangers he faced. She pled with him to be careful. “Don’t expose yourself so much in battle. Just do your duty, and don’t rush out so daringly. Oh, Autie, we must die together.”19

Phil Sheridan had sent to Washington the seventeen battle flags captured at Waynesborough. Libbie Custer attended the flag presentation ceremony held in the office of Secretary of War Stanton, and later wrote to her husband, “Oh, what a happy day that was—the proudest of my life. The room was full, but Mr. Stanton perceived me and extended his hand most cordially … he introduced me as ‘the wife of the gallant general.’ As every flag was presented General Townsend read at the end, ‘Brevet Major-General Custer commanding…’ every time from the first to the seventeenth. I could hardly keep from crying out my praise of my boy. Before leaving I told the Secretary I had waited a long time for a letter from you, but was more than repaid by having witnessed this. Mr. Stanton replied, ‘General Custer is writing lasting letters on the pages of his country’s history.’”20

Sheridan’s command headed south across the James River on March 25, and rejoined the army two days later at City Point. Sherman had returned to Virginia from North Carolina for a brief visit to assist Grant in formulating a strategy designed to once and for all crush Lee’s battered and weary army. Now was the ideal time to strike. Battle losses and desertions had compelled the desperate Confederates to conscript boys from ages fourteen to eighteen as well as older men up to age sixty. And it was Grant’s intention to destroy Lee before he could gather strength or make a move to North Carolina to battle Sherman, which would prolong the war.21

Custer’s Third Division was reorganized into three brigades on March 29. Pennington’s First Brigade would now consist of the First Connecticut, Third New Jersey, Second New York, and Second Ohio; Wells’ Second Brigade had the Eighth New York, Fifteenth New York, and First Vermont; and the Third Brigade, commanded by Henry Capehart, consisted of the First New York, First West Virginia, Second West Virginia, and Third West Virginia.22

When Sheridan’s cavalry rode out on the morning of March 29, Merritt, not Custer, led the column. Merritt, who was often openly jealous of Custer, assigned his nemesis the undesirable and frustrating duty of escorting the wagon train. A torrential downpour the night before had created a quagmire that hindered progress to barely a frog’s pace. Mules sank to their haunches in the muck, and it became necessary to unload wagons to free them from the saturated ground. Custer battled this stubborn natural enemy and slogged through along the road for three days.

On March 31, Sheridan’s advance near Dinwiddie Court House came under a vicious attack by Confederate infantry commanded by General George E. Pickett of Gettysburg fame. Custer and two brigades were summoned to the front; the other brigade would remain behind to guard the wagon train.23

Custer and his aides raced ahead of the column, one of them unfurling Custer’s new personal guidon, which had been made by Libbie and delivered the night before. They arrived at about four in the afternoon to find Dinwiddie Court House in turmoil. The Rebels may have been outnumbered two to one, but nonetheless Pickett had taken the offensive and presently held the upper hand. The Union troops had been driven back by the brutal onslaught but eventually managed to maintain a secure line.

Major General Custer received orders from Sheridan to deploy his troops behind hastily constructed barricades along the road to Five Forks. In the ensuing skirmish, one of his orderlies was killed beside him and his wife’s name, which she had sewn on the guidon, was blasted off in the heavy gunfire.

As the battle intensified, Custer rode along the line exposed to enemy fire in an effort to encourage his men. The resolute Confederate infantry attacked, and briefly forced the Yankees back. Custer rallied the troops, imploring them to remain behind rail barricades and hold their position. At sundown, the Rebels were repulsed in one final desperate assault, and withdrew toward Five Forks. Custer counterattacked, but darkness impeded progress and the chase was called off.24

Lieutenant Colonel Horace Potter, Grant’s aide-de-camp, mentioned to Sheridan that “We at last have drawn the enemy’s infantry out of its fortifications, and this is our chance to attack it.”25

Sheridan had intended to follow Potter’s suggestion at dawn on the following morning. Infantry reinforcements, however, did not arrive by daylight, and it was four o’clock in the afternoon before the twelve-thousand-man Fifth Corps, commanded by Major General Gouveneur Warren, finally made its appearance at Dinwiddie Court House. Sheridan ordered an immediate attack on the Confederate position at Five Forks, where Pickett and about ten thousand troops had been positioned and told by Lee to hold “at all hazards.”26

Custer had been skirmishing with the enemy throughout the day in an effort to determine its size and location. Now, as the Union column proceeded from Dinwiddie Court House, Custer’s division led the cavalry. Custer and Devin would act as a diversionary force to distract Pickett while Warren’s infantry stormed into the Rebels. The cavalry skirmishers pressed through the timber to probe the enemy lines, but Warren had miscalculated the extent of the Confederate line, charged into a gap, and was caught in a devastating cross fire.

Phil Sheridan was infuriated by Warren’s bungled assault, and personally rode into the midst of the Fifth Corps to re-form and rally the troops. Warren’s men responded with renewed fury, and crushed into the Confederate left. Sheridan would later that day relieve Warren of his command.27

Custer mounted two brigades, signaled the band to play “Hail Columbia,” and, accompanied by his staff, led the charge into blazing Rebel fire. The bold thrust was met by stiff resistance as Rooney Lee’s cavalry division appeared on the left flank to tear into the Yankees. The opponents fought hand to hand until Sheridan and Devin overpowered Pickett’s line and began sweeping westward. At that point, Confederate forces executed a hasty withdrawal.

George Armstrong Custer and his red ties chased the Rebels for six miles, rounding up prisoners until darkness descended. Custer reported, “The retreat of over 5,000 of the rebels was then cut off, and this number was secured as prisoners of war. Besides these the loss in killed and wounded was very heavy.” Thirteen battle flags and six artillery pieces were also captured. The end was now very near.28