March 29, 1865---The Battle of Lewis' Farm

MARCH 29, 1865:   

The Battle of Lewis’ Farm     (The Battle of The Quaker Road):        

What ultimately became known as the Appomattox Campaign started in chilly rain and cold mud as Ulysses S. Grant U.S.A.’s forces began moving south as if to flank the Confederate lines south of the Appomattox River. 

This was not an unusual gambit. Grant had slowly been extending his lines all through the fall and winter, forcing Robert E. Lee to extend his lines. In the process, Lee’s lines had become increasingly attenuated. Lee had not been helped by the massive desertions which thinned Confederate ranks all winter. Although desertions had levelled off in early March, the increasingly warm weather had put men in mind of planting season, and in the last nine days of March Lee lost 1,100 men who simply disappeared from the ranks. The disaster at Fort Stedman cost Lee 5,000 men, and in the days afterward other men, unwilling to die in a seemingly hopeless cause, had given up. Lee has had to scrape the hospitals for walking wounded, the saloons for drunks, and the houses of ill fame for officers to bolster his losses as much as he can. The Richmond Garrison, a collection of 5,000 mailmen, garbage collectors, tax men, and clerks most of whom are gun owners (enough of a qualification to go to war in March 1865), has filled the numerical need for warm bodies if not the practical need for trained soldiers. What few city services have been functioning in Richmond grind to a halt when the Garrison is called up. The prevailing civilian attitude toward the war is summed up by the Editor of the Richmond Whig, who grouses in print, “If this is not trifling with the people we don’t know what is.”    

As things develop, it quickly becomes evident that this is not another one of Grant’s rather blithe movements within his own lines. No. The Confederates in their entrenchments report a large force --- 17,000 men in all --- moving along the Quaker Road. Among the forces is the Union Fifth Corps, and within hours it is followed by the Union Second Corps. 

The Confederates do exactly what Grant is hoping for. They move into a position to block Union access to the Boydton Plank Road. Fighting erupts on the grounds of the Lewis family’s farm. The fighting waxes hot, and Brigadier General Joshua L. Chamberlain U.S.A., the hero of Little Round Top at Gettysburg is shot from his horse and wounded. He also loses his hat with its “U.S.” insignia. When a number of Confederate soldiers demand his surrender, the mud-spattered quick-thinking Chamberlain, who is wearing an old blue greatcoat faded to gray, orders them to join him in his attack on the Union lines. Thinking they have shot at one of their own officers, the embarrassed Confederates rally behind him, and follow Chamberlain, who leads them --- right into captivity.

The battle rolls back and forth across the area of the Lewis Farm. Finally, a large body of Union reserves takes the field. Badly outnumbered, the Confederates retreat back to their own lines. Both sides lose about 400 men each. 

The battle ends in a draw, but the Confederates are left in a weakened position. With Rebel forces distracted by the fighting Philip Sheridan is able to seize the town of Dinwiddie Court House. The Union seizes the crossroads of the Boydton Plank Road and the Quaker Road. In order to defend, Lee is forced to further extend his lines. 

Grant is quietly satisfied. Although the Confederates are back in their trenches, the sounds of shovels sucking at gooey mud indicates that they are enlarging their entrenchments and extending their lines. 

Lee is sour and angry after the Battle of Lewis’ Farm. Upset at the ease with which the Union has battered his lines, he spends the day shuffling and repositioning units like a Three Card Monty dealer. Although he finally gets his men into a satisfactory defensive position, the men are tired and bedraggled from all their moving about in the mud and rain. The weather, which has been poor for days, is absolutely filthy as darkness falls. There is a downpour that lasts the night and continues on into the next day.