April 1 - Battle of Five Forks
Confederate General Robert E. Lee's supply line into Petersburg, Virginia, is closed when Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant collapse the end of Lee's lines around Petersburg. The Confederates suffer heavy casualties, and the battle triggered Lee's retreat from Petersburg as the two armies began a race that would end a week later at Appomattox Court House.

For nearly a year, Grant had laid siege to Lee's army in an elaborate network of trenches that ran from Petersburg to the Confederate capital at Richmond, 25 miles north. Lee's hungry army slowly dwindled through the winter of 1864-65 as Grant's army swelled with well-fed reinforcements. On March 25, Lee attacked part of the Union trenches at Fort Stedman in a desperate attempt to break the siege and split Grant's force. When that attack failed, Grant began mobilizing his forces along the entire 40-mile front. Southwest of Petersburg, Grant sent General Philip Sheridan against Lee's right flank.

Sheridan moved forward on March 31, but the tough Confederates halted his advance. Sheridan moved troops to cut the railroad that ran from the southwest into Petersburg, but the focus of the battle became Five Forks, a road intersection that provided the key to Lee's supply line. Lee instructed his commander there, General George Pickett, to "Hold Five Forks at all hazards." On April 1, Sheridan's men slammed into Pickett's troops. Pickett had his force poorly positioned, and he was taking a long lunch with his staff when the attack occurred. General Gouverneur K. Warren's V Corps supported Sheridan, and the 27,000 Yankee troops soon crushed Pickett's command of 10,000. The Union lost 1,000 casualties, but nearly 5,000 of Pickett's men were killed, wounded, or captured. During the battle, Sheridan, with the approval of Grant, removed Warren from command despite Warren's effective deployment of his troops. It appears that a long-simmering feud between the two was the cause, but Warren was not officially cleared of any wrongdoing by a court of inquiry until 1882.

The vital intersection was in Union hands, and Lee's supply line was cut. Grant now attacked all along the Petersburg-Richmond front and Lee evacuated the cities. The two armies began a race west, but Lee could not outrun Grant. The Confederate leader surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9.

April 2
The Union captures Petersburg line and General Hill is killed. After a ten-month siege, Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant capture the trenches around Petersburg, Virginia, and Confederate General Robert E. Lee leads his troops on a desperate retreat westward.

The ragged Confederate troops could no longer maintain the 40-mile network of defenses that ran from southwest of Petersburg to north of Richmond, the Rebel capital 25 miles north of Petersburg. Through the winter, desertion and attrition melted Lee's army down to less than 60,000, while Grant's army swelled to over 120,000. Grant attacked Five Forks southwest of Petersburg on April 1, scoring a huge victory that cut Lee's supply line and inflicted 5,000 casualties. The next day, Lee wrote to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, "I think it absolutely necessary that we should abandon our position tonight..."

Grant's men attacked all along the Petersburg front. In the predawn hours, hundreds of Federal cannons roared to life as the Yankees bombarded the Rebel fortifications. Said one soldier, "the shells screamed through the air in a semi-circle of flame." At 5:00 in the morning, Union troops silently crawled toward the Confederates, shrouded in darkness. Confederate pickets alerted the troops, and the Yankees were raked by heavy fire, but the determined troops poured forth and began overrunning the trenches. Four thousand Union troops were killed or wounded, but a northern officer wrote, "It was a great relief, a positive lifting of a load of misery to be at last let at them."

Confederate General Ambrose Powell Hill, a corps commander in the Army of Northern Virginia and one of Lee's most trusted lieutenants, rode to the front to rally his men. As he approached some trees with his aide, two Union soldiers emerged and fired, killing Hill instantly. Hill had survived four years of war and dozens of battles only to die during the final days of the Confederacy. When Lee received the news, he quietly said "He is at rest now, and we who are left are the ones to suffer."

President Davis, his government and many of the citizens evacuate Richmond. The city, one of the crown jewels of America, descends into chaos and by nightfall is burning. The scenes that play out on this and subsequent days are unforgettable.

April 3 - Richmond captured
The Rebel capital of Richmond falls to the Union, the most significant sign that the Confederacy is nearing its final days.

For ten months, General Ulysses S. Grant had tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate the city. After Lee made a desperate attack against Fort Stedman along the Union line on March 25, Grant prepared for a major offensive. He struck at Five Forks on April 1, crushing the end of Lee's line southwest of Petersburg. On April 2, the Yankees struck all along the Petersburg line, and the Confederates collapsed.

On the evening of April 2, the Confederate government fled the city with the army right behind. Now, on the morning of April 3, blue-coated troops entered the capital. Richmond was the holy grail of the Union war effort, the object of four years of campaigning. Tens of thousands of Yankee lives were lost trying to get it, and nearly as many Confederate lives lost trying to defend it.

Now, the Yankees came to take possession of their prize. One resident, Mary Fontaine, wrote, "I saw them unfurl a tiny flag, and I sank on my knees, and the bitter, bitter tears came in a torrent." As the Federals rode in, another wrote that the city's black residents were "completely crazed, they danced and shouted, men hugged each other, and women kissed." Among the first forces into the capital were black troopers from the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry, and the next day President Abraham Lincoln visited the city. For the residents of Richmond, these were symbols of a world turned upside down. It was, one reporter noted, "...too awful to remember, if it were possible to be erased, but that cannot be."

April 4 - President Lincoln in Richmond
President Abraham Lincoln visits the Confederate capital a day after Union forces capture it. Lincoln had been in the area for nearly two weeks. He left Washington at the invitation of general-in-chief Ulysses S. Grant to visit Grant's headquarters at City Point, near the lines at Petersburg south of Richmond. The trip was exhilarating for the exhausted president. Worn out by four years of war and stifled by the pressures of Washington, Lincoln enjoyed himself immensely. He conferred with Grant and General William T. Sherman, who took a break from his campaign in North Carolina. He visited soldiers, and even picked up an axe to chop logs in front of the troops.

He stayed at City Point, sensing that the final push was near. Grant's forces overran the Petersburg line on April 2, and the Confederate government fled the capital later that day. Union forces occupied Richmond on April 3, and Lincoln sailed up the James River to see the spoils of war. His ship could not pass some obstructions that had been placed in the river by the Confederates so 12 soldiers rowed him to shore. He landed without fanfare but was soon recognized by some black workmen who ran to him and bowed. The modest Lincoln told them to "...kneel to God only, and thank him for the liberty you will hereafter enjoy."

Lincoln, accompanied by a small group of soldiers and a growing entourage of freed slaves, walked to the Confederate White House and sat in President Jefferson Davis's chair. He walked to the Virginia statehouse and saw the chambers of the Confederate Congress. Lincoln even visited Libby Prison, where thousands of Union officers were held during the war. Lincoln remained a few more days in hopes that Robert E. Lee's army would surrender, but on April 8 he headed back to Washington. Six days later, Lincoln was shot as he watched a play at Ford's Theater.

April 5 - Lee leaves Amelia Court House, Virginia
Confederate General Robert E. Lee pulls his troops from Amelia Court House and begins a desperate race west to escape pursuing Yankee troops. On April 2, Lee's men were forced to evacuate Richmond and Petersburg after a ten-month siege. The hungry army arrived at Amelia Court House expecting to find rations, but only ammunition and canons had been delivered. Lee was distraught, and he sent his troops out to the countryside to find food. They found little, however, and were forced to move on with empty stomachs.