From Gettysburg to Appomattox

When the guns grew silent at Gettysburg, a definite and pivotal change had occurred favoring the Union, but the war still had nearly two more years to go.

General Robert E. Lee, who realized that a defensive war would only end in attrition for the defenders, had taken a gamble on taking the fight into the North, and lost heavily in Pennsylvania.  His men, however, refused to be beaten; it would take much more to lead them to that eventual surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.  That future surrender had begun at the crossroads town of Gettysburg in the summer of 1863, though the combatants had not yet realized it.

History can never make a full account of the losses incurred by the Army of Northern Virginia at Gettysburg.  Lee was an aggressive general, even when fighting defensively, and it was sadly apparent at Gettysburg.  No one is certain how many Confederates fought in Pennsylvania, therefore it is impossible to number the casualties they suffered during those three days in July.  They were already malnourished and exhausted, yet still fought with fury.  While General Lee admitted losing about 21,000 men during the battle, the numbers are definitely higher, as the wounded and captured left behind at Gettysburg nearly total that number.  A wagon train that stretched for 17 miles and filled with Southern wounded left Gettysburg early on July 4, 1863; there are myriad dead from Lee’s army that were buried along the way to Virginia from that wagon train, and on the field – many of them have never been found.  He may have lost one-third of his troops during that three-day fight.  And the Army of Northern Virginia kept on fighting.¹

It seems improbable that General Lee and his Gettysburg nemesis General Meade did not face one another again until The Wilderness on May 5-7, 1864; yet that is the next time the two opposing commanders met after Gettysburg.

Both armies had suffered immense damage at Gettysburg, from which it took months to recover.  Many generals, thirty-four to be exact, from both sides were either killed, wounded, or captured.  Desertions, especially on the Confederate side, were legion – courts martial and executions were commonplace with both the blue and gray during the summer of 1863.²

Portions of both armies went west for a time – Longstreet’s Confederate Corps and the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps for the Union traveled to Tennessee and northern Georgia to assist their respective sides in several battles, including Chickamauga, Knoxville, and Lookout Mountain.  In the Eastern Theater, Meade and Lee were enveloped in what came to be known as the Mine Run Campaign, as Meade headed toward the Rappahannock and Richmond, and Lee was determined to stop him.  The area in Prince William and Orange Counties was the focal point of the coming fight. No significant battle ever materialized, although there were skirmishes and smaller battles, a normal occurrence with two opposing armies in such proximity to each other.  Northern Virginia was in such a state of destitution at that time that one officer described it, “’Tis desolation made desolate indeed.  As far as the eye can reach on every side, there is one vast, barren wilderness; not a fence, not an acre cultivated, not a living object visible; and but for here and there a standing chimney, on the ruins of what was once a handsome and happy home, one would imagine that man was never here.”³

It appears that Meade, remembering the full-scale destruction at Gettysburg, was not keen to execute a frontal assault upon entrenched Confederates in their strongholds.  Extreme weather during the month of November and an outbreak of malaria among Union troops also influenced his decision not to attack.  Another significant loss to the South at that time was the death of General Carnot Posey, a veteran of Gettysburg, who died from an infected wound he received at Bristoe Station, an area due east of Warrenton in Prince William County.  The Confederacy already suffered from a dearth of leadership; Lee could not afford to lose any more commanders.⁴

General Lee was disappointed that Meade did not attack him at Mine Run.  As the Union army escaped into winter quarters in 1863, Jefferson Davis requested Lee to go west, and take over the Army of Tennessee; the area was besieged by the invincible General Grant.  Lee wriggled out of the transfer, as his son, Rooney, had been captured, his daughter-in-law, Charlotte, was dangerously ill (and soon died). Mrs. Lee was also in failing health.  He did not want to leave Virginia, and the army he so valiantly led.⁵

If hoping to escape Grant had been part of Lee’s decision, it was soon dashed.  On March 8, 1864, Ulysses S. Grant arrived in Washington as the commander of all Union armies, replacing Henry Halleck – who received the promotion of Chief of Staff in the nation’s capital.  Grant knew that Lee was the general to vanquish, and planned a campaign to chase the Army of Northern Virginia, beat them in battle, and continue toward Richmond.  General George Meade remained, for the rest of the war, the commander of the Army of the Potomac.  Grant, however, was his superior officer as commander of all Union armies.⁶

Grant embarked on his Overland Campaign in the spring of 1864.  The campaign consisted of several sanguinary battles: The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna, and Cold Harbor.  With each battle, both Federal and Confederate losses were staggering.  With the end of each fight, as Lee redeployed elsewhere, Grant doggedly followed him, all the way to Petersburg in June 1864.

In the interim, just as at Gettysburg, more generals (and officers as well as thousands of enlisted men) fell in battle.  Among them were two of Lee’s most trusted subordinates: General Longstreet – who was severely wounded at The Wilderness – and Jeb Stuart, who was killed shortly afterward in a cavalry skirmish.  The Union lost Generals Wadsworth and Hays at The Wilderness and the beloved General Sedgwick to a sniper at Spotsylvania.  General Hancock’s old Gettysburg wound plagued him as he returned to the field.  The severe wound, which he had received during Pickett’s Charge, reopened, rendering him unfit for duty on the battlefield.  

At Petersburg, Grant ordered an all-out attack on Lee’s entrenched troops.  When repulsed again and again, losing good men to certain death, Grant resorted to the tactic that worked for him in Vicksburg – the siege.

The South was already in desperate condition with a lack of food and a dearth of competent commanders, but they settled in for the siege, determined to survive it.  Abraham Lincoln was up for reelection.  Lincoln’s opponent, the former army commander George McClellan, campaigned on the slogan “Peace at Any Price”.  If the Confederacy could outlast the election, they believed they could still win the war.⁷

With Grant having assumed command in the Eastern Theater, the truculent William T. Sherman received command of all armies to the west.  This Ohio native, like his counterpart in the east, reciprocated with modern warfare, inflicting great damage on both military and civilian populations.  He won decisively at the Battle of Atlanta against General John Bell Hood, followed by an unencumbered March to the Sea from September 1864 to the end of that year.  Sherman’s victories, and the loyal support of the Union soldiers, helped Abraham Lincoln win reelection.  His assured second term put the final nail in the coffin of the Confederacy.⁸

The last winter of the war was “a doleful period” for the men of the South.  General Lee, still in poor health, “ experienced many hours of depression ” though he hid it from the enlisted men.  In early 1865, General John Gordon noticed “a painful expression” on Lee’s face during a visit.  They knew from their scouts of the “ immense preparations progressing in the Union lines for assaults on our breastworks ” at Petersburg.  The shoeless, shivering, starving men in gray were unable to prevent, or withstand, such an assault.  They vacated Petersburg, in a last effort to unite with General Joe Johnston’s Army of Tennessee in North Carolina.⁹

Union troops seized Petersburg, on April 2, 1865.  As the city no longer protected Richmond, the Confederate capital fell into Federal hands soon afterward.  President Lincoln was visiting Grant at City Point in Virginia when he received the news.  “Thank God I have lived to see this!” he exclaimed.  Within days, Lincoln, Mary, and Tad toured Petersburg and Richmond by carriage. In spite of Lincoln’s happiness that the war would soon be over, there was an atmosphere of melancholy that exuded from his face.  He could not help but internalize the terrible toll of war when seeing the two vanquished cities.¹⁰

On Sunday morning, April 9, 1865, Lee and his army found themselves at Appomattox Court House.  Lee had hoped to meet a supply train nearby, but to his dismay, the Union troops had confiscated it.  Grant, knowing from General Sheridan’s cavalry the movements of the Army of Northern Virginia, hurried to Appomattox, with Meade’s Army of the Potomac, and General James Ord’s Army of the James.  The Union armies encircled Lee’s exhausted and ravenously malnourished men.  “At three o’clock in the morning of that fatal day, General Lee rode forward, still hoping that we might break through,” General John Gordon remembered.  He replied to Lee that “  have fought my corps to a frazzle, and I fear I can do nothing unless I am heavily supported by Longstreet’s Corps.”¹¹

Colonel Venable, a member of Lee’s staff, relayed the message.  The general replied, “There is nothing left me but to go and see General Grant, and I had rather die a thousand deaths.”¹²

On that Sunday morning, a white banner was seen heading toward the Union lines, borne by “a soldierly figure” on horseback.  Brigadier General Joshua L. Chamberlain, who commanded a brigade of Union troops, recalled that he wondered “where in either army was found a towel, and one so white.”¹³

When the messenger reached the Union lines, he said, “Sir, I am from General Gordon.  General Lee desires a cessation of hostilities until he can hear from General Grant as to the proposed surrender.”¹⁴

At one o’clock that afternoon the surrender meeting took place in the home of Virginian Wilmer McLean.  The news “Lee surrenders!” rang through the lines.  General Grant insisted on a formal surrender ceremony for April 11.  Lee agreed, left the house, and rode among his men a final time.  “As he rode back from the McLean house to his bivouac, his weeping men crowded around him…Only for a fleeting moment did he lose complete self-control,” remembered John Gordon.  General Grant issued rations for 25,000 men among the Confederate lines.  The number proved what was unsaid but dreadfully evident:  Lee had lost more men at Gettysburg than he had remaining in his army at Appomattox.¹⁵

It had been a war of attrition after all.

And the Battle of Gettysburg, in the middle of that four-year conflict, played a significant role in bringing that terrible war to its denouement.