The Appomattox Campaign was an American Civil War military campaign, which was successfully carried out by Union forces, under General Ulysses S. Grant, against an exhausted Confederate Army, led by Robert E Lee, in Virginia, from April 1 to April 9, 1865. This great offensive launched by the North marked the end of the domestic armed struggle in America. The victory of the Union Army forced Robert E. Lee to sign the unconditional surrender on April 9.
The first battle of the Appomattox Campaign was the Battle of Five Forks, at which the Union V Corps, under Philip H Sheridan, defeated four Rebel divisions. On April 2, at the Third Battle of Petersburg, Ulysses S Grant, with a 75,000-man army, routed a Rebel force composed of 58,000 troops, forcing Lee to withdraw his army from Petersburg and Richmond, and march westward. However, on April 6, the Union Army caught up with Lee’s forces at Sayler’s Creek, Amelia County, Virginia, defeating him yet a second time. At the Battle of Sayler's Creek a Confederate rear guard is cut off as 6,000 men are taken prisoner.
Although more than half of the Rebel Army could escape and continue to move west, a war-weary Robert E Lee finally decided to surrender his decimated army on April 9, 1865, at the McLean House, near the Appomattox Court House. This is how he put an end to the protracted Civil War, during which about 600,000 men were killed.
Below, a map that shows the formation of both armies at the beginning of the Battle of Sayler's Creek on April 6, 1865. The red color represents the Confederate forces, while the blue, the Union Army.
