Battle of Appomattox Station

On April 8, 1865, the Appomattox Campaign was rapidly coming to a dramatic conclusion. General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia marched west towards Appomattox Station and supply trains filled with much needed rations. Unbeknownst to Lee, General Ulysses S. Grant had divided his forces, sending cavalry racing ahead to cut the Confederates off. General George Armstrong Custer’s 3,000 troopers arrived at Appomattox Station at around 4:00 that afternoon; they quickly captured three of the four trains lined up along the South Side Railroad. The only Confederate troops in the area consisted of a force of reserve artillery, several thousand soldiers and 100 cannon under General Reuben Lindsay Walker, who were clearly not expecting a fight. Quickly organizing his men and guns for battle, Walker established a defensive line while getting much of his force out of harms way.

The engagement quickly turned into one of the strangest of the entire Civil War. Pitting Federal cavalry against Confederate artillery, with no infantry present on either side. Much of the five-hour battle was fought in darkness, and compared with the surrounding countryside, the battlefield was largely obstructed by dense woods and thickets. These conditions severely hindered both sides. In the end, after several failed mounted charges, Custer’s troopers broke through Walker’s line, capturing 25 cannon, nearly 1,000 prisoners, five battle flags, and upwards of 200 wagons. Due to the confusing nature of the engagement, casualties were amazingly light for both sides; a total of around 100 men were killed or wounded. However, Federal surgeons commented that they had never treated so many extreme cases.

In the aftermath, a detail from the 15th New York Cavalry under Lieutenant Colonel Augustus Root charged ahead under a full moon, along the Richmond-Lynchburg Stage Rd., towards Appomattox Court House, looking for the rest of Lee’s army. Confederate infantry, just arriving in the village from the east, stopped the charge in a brief but intense firefight. Root was shot and killed not far from the County Jail. After four long years, the war had arrived at Appomattox Court House. That night, as his soldiers went into bivouac, Lee held a council of war and decided to attack the next morning to re-open his army’s escape route west. Meanwhile, Federal reinforcements were already moving to take advantage of Custer’s victory and force the Army of Northern Virginia’s surrender.