The Battle of White Oak Road, also known as The Battle of Hatcher's Run, Gravelly Run, Boydton Plank Road, White Oak Ridge was fought on March 31, 1865, during the American Civil War at the end of the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign and in the beginning stage of the Appomattox Campaign. Along with the Battle of Dinwiddie Court House which was fought simultaneously on March 31, the battle involved the last offensive action by General Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to stop the progress of Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant's Union Army (Army of the Potomac, Army of the Shenandoah and Army of the James). Grant's forces were moving to cut the remaining Confederate supply lines and to force the Confederates to extend their defensive lines at Petersburg, Virginia and Richmond, Virginia to the breaking point, if not to force them into a decisive open field battle.Bearss, Edwin C., with Bryce A. Suderow. The Petersburg Campaign. Vol. 2, The Western Front Battles, September 1864 – April 1865. El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie, 2014. . p. 411.
On March 29, 1865, the Union V Corps under Major General Gouverneur K. Warren moved to the end of the Confederates' White Oak Road Line, the far right flank of the Confederate defenses. At the conclusion of the Battle of Lewis's Farm on that day, Warren's corps took control of advance Confederate picket or outpost positions and occupied a segment of a key transportation and communication route, the Boydton Plank Road, at the junction of the Quaker Road. Warren's corps was the closest Union infantry unit to Major General Philip Sheridan's force which had moved about to Dinwiddie Court House, Virginia west of the end of the Confederate lines and just south of Five Forks, Virginia.Bearss, 2014, p. 432. Five Forks was an important road junction for control of the critical Confederate supply line of the South Side Railroad (sometimes shown as Southside Railroad).
Colonel Frederick Winthrop's brigade of Brigadier General Romeyn B. Ayres's division of the V Corps took a further advance position across Gravelly Run near the Confederate White Oak Road Line in torrential rain on March 30, 1865. Ayres was unaware of how close his men were settling in near the Confederate White Oak Road Line and that contrary to his observation and belief, the Confederate line extended beyond the end of his new position. This, and the separation between Ayres's corps and Sheridan's cavalry, were important factors when Ayres's troops were surprised by a Confederate attack the next day. Warren's corps, led by Brevet Major General Charles Griffin's First Division, counterattacked, pushed the Confederates back to their original lines, secured advanced positions and cut the Confederates' access to direct communication with Pickett over White Oak Road and the Boydton Plank Road. After securing his position, Warren also was able to send units to outflank and drive off Pickett's forces which were in a position to inflict a serious defeat on Sheridan's troopers whom Pickett's force had pushed back that day at Dinwiddie Court House.
The battles at White Oak Road and Dinwiddie Court House, while initially successful for the Confederates, even a tactical victory at Dinwiddie, ultimately did not advance their lines or achieve their strategic objective of weakening and driving back the Union forces or separating Sheridan's force from support. The battles and their aftermath set the stage for the Confederate defeats and the collapse of Confederate lines at the Battle of Five Forks on the following day, April 1, 1865, and the Third Battle of Petersburg (also known as the Breakthrough at Petersburg) on April 2, 1865 and ultimately led to the surrender of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia after the Battle of Appomattox Court House, Virginia on April 9, 1865.
Background Military situation
Siege of Petersburg
When two unobserved corps of the Union Army of the Potomac, which combined with the Union Army of the James outside Petersburg, failed to seize the city from a small force of Confederate defenders at the Second Battle of Petersburg, the 292-day Richmond–Petersburg Campaign (Siege of Petersburg) began.Hess, Earl J. In the Trenches at Petersburg: Field Fortifications & Confederate Defeat. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. . pp. 18–37. Union General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant had to conduct a campaign of trench warfare and attrition in which the Union forces tried to wear down the less numerous Confederate Army, destroy or cut off sources of supply and supply lines to Petersburg and Richmond and extend the defensive lines which the outnumbered and declining Confederate force had to defend to the breaking point.Beringer, Richard E., Herman Hattaway, Archer Jones, and William N. Still, Jr. Why the South Lost the Civil War. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986. . pp. 331–332.Trudeau, Noah Andre. The Last Citadel: Petersburg, Virginia, June 1864–April 1865. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991. . p. 18. After the Battle of Hatcher's Run on February 5–7, 1865 extended the lines another , Lee had few reserves after manning the lengthened defenses.Weigley, Russell F. A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861–1865. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000. . p. 433. Lee then knew that part or all of his army must leave the Richmond and Petersburg lines, obtain food and supplies at Danville, Virginia or possibly Lynchburg, Virginia and join General Joseph E. Johnston's force opposing Major General William T. Sherman's army in North Carolina. If the Confederates could quickly defeat Sherman, they might turn back to oppose Grant before he could combine his forces with Sherman's.Greene, A. Wilson. The Final Battles of the Petersburg Campaign: Breaking the Backbone of the Rebellion. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2008. . p. 154.Calkins, Chris. The Appomattox Campaign, March 29 – April 9, 1865. Conshohocken, PA: Combined Books, 1997. . pp. 14, 16.Hess, 2009, p. 253.Longacre, Edward G. The Cavalry at Appomattox: A Tactical Study of Mounted Operations During the Civil War's Climactic Campaign, March 27 – April 9, 1865. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003. . p. 39. Lee began preparations for the movement and informed Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Confederate States Secretary of War John C. Breckinridge of his conclusions and plan.Greene, 2008, p. 111.Trudeau, 1991, pp. 324–325.Hattaway, Herman, and Archer Jones. How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983. . pp. 669–671.pp. 669–671.
Battle of Fort Stedman
Aware that Sherman's army moving through North Carolina might combine with Grant's army at Petersburg if General Joseph E. Johnston's army could not stop Sherman, and that Lee's own declining army could not hold the Richmond and Petersburg defenses much longer, in March 1865, General Lee accepted a plan by Major General John Brown Gordon to launch an attack on Union Fort Stedman.Trudeau, 1991, pp. 337–352. The objective would be to break the Union lines east of Petersburg, or at least to compel the Union forces to shorten their lines by gaining ground in a substantial attack. This was supposed to permit Lee to shorten the Confederate lines and send a substantial force to help Johnston, or if necessary to give the Confederates a head start in evacuating Richmond and Petersburg and combining Lee's entire force with Johnston's dwindling army.Greene, 2008, p. 108.Davis, William C. An Honorable Defeat: The Last Days of the Confederate Government. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2001. . p. 49.
After Gordon's surprise attack on Fort Stedman in the pre-dawn hours of March 25, 1865 resulted in the capture of the fort, three adjacent batteries and over 500 men while killing and wounding about 500 more, the Union IX Corps under Major General John G. Parke promptly counterattacked. The IX Corps recaptured the fort and batteries, forced the Confederates to return to their lines and give up their advance picket line and inflicted about 4,000 casualties, including about 1,000 captured, which the Confederates could ill afford.Greene, 2008, pp. 114–115.
On the afternoon of March 25, at the Battle of Jones's Farm, Union forces of II Corps and VI Corps captured Confederate picket lines near Armstrong's Mill and extended the left end of the Union line about closer to the Confederate fortifications. This put the VI Corps which was holding this section of the line, within easy striking distance, about , of the Confederate line.Marvel, William. Lee's Last Retreat: The Flight to Appomattox. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. . p. 11.Trudeau, 1991, p. 366. After the Confederate defeats at Fort Stedman and Jones's Farm, Lee knew that Grant would soon move against the only remaining Confederate supply lines to Petersburg, the Southside Railroad and the Boydton Plank Road and possibly cut off all routes of retreat from Richmond and Petersburg.Greene, 2008, p. 154"Calkins, 1997, p. 16.Hattaway, Herman, and Archer Jones. How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983. . pp. 669–671.
March 29 movements
Grant's orders
On March 24, 1865, the day before the Confederate attack on Fort Stedman, Grant already had planned an offensive for March 29, 1865.Calkins, 1997, p. 12. The objectives were to draw the Confederates out into a battle in which they might be defeated, or cut the remaining road and railroad supply and communication routes between areas of the Confederacy still under Confederate control and Petersburg and Richmond if the Confederates held their lines. The Battle of Fort Stedman had no effect on Grant's plans.Bearss, 2014, p. 312. The Union Army lost no ground due to the attack and their casualties were a small percentage of their force.Hess, 2009, pp. 252–254.Keegan, John, The American Civil War: A Military History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. . p. 257.
Grant ordered Major General Edward Ord's to move part of the Army of the James from the lines near Richmond to fill in the line to be vacated by the II Corps under Major General Andrew A. Humphreys at the southwest end of the Petersburg line before the II Corps moved to the west. Ord moved two divisions of Major General John Gibbon's XXIV Corps under Brigadier Generals Charles Devens and William Birney and one division of XXV Corps under Brigadier General John W. Turner to the south side of the Appomattox River.Bearss, 2014, p. 317. This freed two corps of Major General George Meade's Army of the Potomac for offensive action against Lee's flank and railroad supply lines: Major General Humphrey's II Corps and the V Corps under the command of Major General Gouverneur K. Warren.Calkins, 1997, p. 14.Bonekemper, Edward H., III. A Victor, Not a Butcher: Ulysses S. Grant's Overlooked Military Genius. Washington, DC: Regnery, 2004. , p. 230.Greene, 2008, p. 152. Grant ordered these forces, along with Major General Philip Sheridan's cavalry, still designated the Army of the Shenandoah, consisting of the First Division of Brigadier General Thomas Devin and the Third Division of Brigadier General and Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer but both under the overall command of Brigadier General and Brevet Major General Wesley Merritt as an unofficial corps commander and the Second Division of Major General George Crook detached from the Army of the Potomac for this mission, to move west. The objectives were to bring on an open field battle to defeat the Confederates in combat or to cut the Southside Railroad and the Boydton Plank Road, which connected with the previously severed Weldon Railroad to Petersburg, and the Richmond and Danville Railroad to Richmond, and to stretch Lee's line to the breaking point.
Lee's orders