Union Cavalry Attacks stop on the Five Forks Battlefield tour at Petersburg National Battlefield (photo by National Park Service)

FIVE FORKS BATTLEFIELD DRIVING TOUR

STOP 1:  Union Cavalry Attacks

Allow 5 minutes for a visit

The first stop on the Five Forks Battlefield Driving Tour at Petersburg National Battlefield is located on Courthouse Road a little over a half mile southeast of the actual Five Forks intersection. There is nothing at this stop other than a lone wayside exhibit that explains the events that took place in this area.

On March 31, 1865, Confederate troops under the command of General George Pickett (of Pickett’s Charge fame) had pushed Union general Philip Sheridan’s army back to the Dinwiddie Court House (five miles south of Stop 1), but when Union reinforcements began arriving that evening, Pickett retreated to the Five Forks area, which Confederate general Robert E. Lee had ordered him to hold at all costs. If the Union army could break through the Confederate line at Five Forks, it could march up Ford’s Road (today’s Courthouse Road north of the intersection) and seize the South Side Railroad, cutting off the last Confederate supply line into Petersburg.

On April 1st, Sheridan began his march northwest unhindered towards Five Forks along Dinwiddie Court House Road, the historical name for today’s Courthouse Road. It was in this area that his 6,000 men formed a line two miles wide, centered on the road. When the battle began late in the day, Sheridan attacked from the south while Union general Gouverneur Warren and 12,000 men attacked Pickett’s left flank from the east. A day earlier at the Battle of White Oak Road, Warren had broken through the Confederate line five miles east of Five Forks, thus cutting off Pickett from the rest of the Confederate army. This is how Warren was able to attack from the east, and eventually from the northeast.