APPOMATTOX CAMPAIGN

The Appomattox Campaign consisted of 15 battles, beginning with the Battle of White Oak Road, which was a victory for Robert E. Lee's forces, and ended in Lee's surrender to Ulysses S. Grant in the village of Appomattox, Virginia.

The Appomattox Campaign opened the spring fighting season for 1865. Lee attempted to keep his fortifications around Petersburg strong, to protect his supply lines west from Petersburg on the South Side Railroad. Grant sought the weak place in Lee's fortifications west of Petersburg, and found it at Five Forks, and pushed Lee west and into the trap that resulted in Lee's surrender eight days later.

African-Americans loyal to both the union and to the Confederacy fought valantly in the last days of the war. The Union used African-American units for the march into the Richmond and Petersburg, as well as in some of the battles of the Appomattox Campaign. The Confederacy, who had used many African-Americans in non-combat roles in the Confederate Army were so desperate for new manpower, that Davis, at Lee's urging, signed a draft of African-Americans, both slave and free, into the Confederate Army.

The newly formed division marched proudly in the streets of Richmond on April 1st, and then fought in the final battles of the Appomattox Campaign.