Wayside exhibit at the Crawford’s Sweep stop on the Five Forks Battlefield tour at Petersburg National Battlefield

FIVE FORKS BATTLEFIELD DRIVING TOUR

STOP 5:  Crawford’s Sweep

Allow 5 minutes for a visit

The final stop on the Five Forks Battlefield Driving Tour at Petersburg National Battlefield is north of the Five Forks intersection on Courthouse Road, which was called Ford’s Road in 1865. There are two wayside exhibits about the events that took place here.

Fighting a war in a time before radio communications and aerial surveillance meant that there was often confusion on the battlefield. Two entire armies could be a quarter mile away from each other on the other side of a forest and neither would be the wiser as to the other’s presence. One moment of confusion during the Battle of Five Forks turned out for the best for the Union army.

Confederate general George Pickett had his 10,000 men dig in along two miles of White Oak Road in the Five Forks area on the night of March 31, 1865. As explained at The Angle stop on the battlefield tour, the left flank of the Confederate line turned northwards for 150 yards. Pickett had been cut off from the rest of the Confederate army five miles to the east, so he expected an attack from that direction, thus the northward line of fortifications.

On April 1st, the Battle of Five Forks began late in the afternoon. Union general Gouverneur Warren’s V Corps was assigned to attack the Confederate left. Two divisions under the command of generals Romeyn B. Ayres and Samuel Crawford led the attack, with a third division commanded by General Charles Griffin following in the rear of Crawford. The attack originated from southeast of the Five Forks intersection.

Ayres hit the Confederate left flank along White Oak Road while Crawford continued north across the road before turning west to attack The Angle from the east. The only problem was that Crawford’s men marched too far north, and when they turned west they went right by the Confederate line. Some of Griffin’s men heard the gunfire to their left and broke off in that direction, but most of Crawford’s division just keep marching west until they reached Ford’s Road. At this point Crawford realized he was not only behind the Confederates, but he had also cut off their escape route. He thus turned south and attacked the Confederate line near this stop on the Five Forks battlefield tour. With Ayres attacking from the east, General Thomas Devin’s cavalry division from the center, and General George Armstrong Custer from the west, the Confederates were now surrounded, and defeat was inevitable.