Grant vs. Lee: The Overland Campaign & the Real Road to Appomattox (1865)

Military History: The US Civil War

Chapter 9 · Grant vs. Lee: The Overland Campaign & the Real Road to Appomattox (1865)

Every Union commander in Virginia before 1864 had fought Lee and then pulled back to recover. Grant did not. From May 1864 he kept attacking and kept moving, accepting casualties no earlier Northern general could have survived politically. Eleven months later Lee's army, trapped and starving, surrendered at a small village in central Virginia.

Grant's Plan: Never Let Go

Lee's Army Is the Target

Grant, travelling with the Army of the Potomac (still formally commanded by Meade), told Meade that wherever Lee went, he would go too. Destroying Lee's army mattered more than capturing Richmond.

Keep Moving Around the Flank

When a battle stalled, Grant slid his army sideways around Lee's right, always moving closer to Richmond and forcing Lee to follow and dig in again.

Pressure Everywhere

At the same time, Sherman pushed toward Atlanta (Chapter 8), so the Confederacy couldn't shift troops between the two main armies.

The Overland Campaign: May – June 1864

  • 5–7 May The Wilderness: dense woodland near the old Chancellorsville battlefield (Chapter 6). Lee attacks, the woods catch fire, and many wounded burn to death. Two days of fighting end in a draw.
  • 7 May The turning point: instead of retreating north, Grant turns the army south. Union soldiers, who had expected yet another retreat, cheer.
  • 8–21 May Spotsylvania Court House: at a bulge in the Confederate line called the Mule Shoe, the fighting at the "Bloody Angle" on 12 May goes on for nearly a day, much of it hand-to-hand across the earthworks.
  • 23–26 May North Anna: Lee sets a clever trap with a V-shaped line, but is too ill to spring it.
  • 3 June Cold Harbor: Grant orders a massive frontal assault on entrenched Confederates and loses thousands of men in a short time for almost no gain.
"If It Takes All Summer"

During Spotsylvania, Grant wrote to Washington that he proposed "to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." It became one of the war's best-known lines — and it took far longer than a summer.

Was Grant a "Butcher"? The Overland Campaign cost the Union about 55,000 casualties against about 33,000 Confederate, and critics called Grant a butcher. But Lee's losses were a much larger share of a smaller army, and the South couldn't replace them. Grant himself wrote in his memoirs that he always regretted the final assault at Cold Harbor. The fairer judgement is that his strategy was costly by design — and it worked, where cheaper approaches had failed for three years.
Trenches Everywhere By 1864 both armies dug in almost every time they stopped, building earthworks within hours. Frontal attacks on trenches failed again and again. That's the most important change since First Bull Run (Chapter 3), and it leads directly into Chapter 10's question about the war as a preview of 1914.

Petersburg: Nine Months in the Trenches

In mid-June Grant secretly moved his army across the James River toward Petersburg, the railroad junction that supplied Richmond. Confederate defenders held just long enough, and both sides settled into a siege that lasted from June 1864 to spring 1865, with lines of trenches eventually running more than 30 miles.

The Battle of the Crater, 30 July 1864

Union soldiers who had been coal miners dug a long tunnel under the Confederate line and packed it with gunpowder. The explosion blew a huge crater in the defences. A division of Black troops had trained to lead the attack, but at the last minute was replaced by an untrained white division, which charged into the crater instead of around it and got trapped. When the Black troops were finally sent in, they were caught in the same slaughter; some who tried to surrender were killed by Confederate soldiers. It was a disaster of leadership, not of the idea itself.

The Largest Concentration of Black Troops Petersburg saw the war's largest concentration of Black Union soldiers. Nearly 180,000–190,000 Black men served in the Union army in all, as noted in Chapter 1.

The Collapse: April 1865

  • 1 April At Five Forks, Union cavalry and infantry under Philip Sheridan smash Lee's far right, cutting one of his last supply railroads.
  • 2 April Grant attacks all along the Petersburg line and breaks through. Lee tells Jefferson Davis that Richmond must be abandoned.
  • 3 April Union troops, including Black regiments, enter Richmond. Lincoln visits the city the next day.
  • 6 April At Sailor's Creek, a large part of Lee's retreating army is cut off and captured.
  • 8–9 April Sheridan's cavalry gets ahead of Lee near Appomattox Court House, blocking his escape to the west. Lee agrees to meet Grant.

Appomattox: 9 April 1865

The Surrender in Wilmer McLean's Parlour

Lee and Grant met in the house of Wilmer McLean. McLean had moved to Appomattox to escape the war — his earlier farm at Manassas had been used as a Confederate headquarters during First Bull Run (Chapter 3). The war, it's often said, began in his front yard and ended in his parlour. Grant's terms were written out by his aide Ely S. Parker, a Seneca.

Generous Terms

Confederate soldiers were paroled and allowed to go home, not imprisoned. Officers kept their side arms, and men who owned horses or mules could take them home for spring planting.

Rations

Grant sent food to Lee's starving army — about 28,000 men were paroled in the following days.

The Salute, 12 April

At the formal surrender ceremony, Joshua Chamberlain (Chapter 6) had his troops salute the Confederates marching past, and John B. Gordon's men returned it.

Appomattox Didn't End the War on Its Own Lee surrendered only his own army. Joseph Johnston surrendered to Sherman at Bennett Place, North Carolina, on 26 April; the Confederate forces west of the Mississippi gave up in late May and early June; and the last Confederate general to surrender, Stand Watie, a Cherokee commander, did so on 23 June 1865. The Confederate raider CSS Shenandoah didn't surrender until November 1865, in Liverpool. Meanwhile, on 14 April, five days after Appomattox, Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre in Washington and died the next morning.

Questions to Sit With

Grant lost more men than Lee in almost every battle of 1864, yet won. What does that tell you about how to measure success in war?
Why do you think Grant offered such generous surrender terms? What was he trying to achieve after the war?
The Crater was a good idea that failed through poor leadership. Where else in this course has that happened?

Quick Reference — Chapter 9

  • Grant's 1864 plan: target Lee's army, keep moving around its flank, and apply pressure everywhere at once
  • Overland Campaign (May–June 1864): the Wilderness, Spotsylvania (the Bloody Angle, 12 May), North Anna, Cold Harbor (3 June); about 55,000 Union vs 33,000 Confederate casualties
  • After the Wilderness Grant moved south instead of retreating; "fight it out on this line if it takes all summer"
  • Siege of Petersburg, June 1864 – April 1865: over 30 miles of trenches; the Crater (30 July 1864) failed through poor leadership, with heavy losses among Black troops
  • April 1865: Five Forks (1 April), breakthrough and evacuation of Richmond (2–3 April), Sailor's Creek (6 April)
  • Lee surrendered at the McLean house, Appomattox, on 9 April 1865; generous terms, about 28,000 paroled; terms written by Ely S. Parker
  • Johnston surrendered on 26 April, Stand Watie on 23 June, the Shenandoah in November 1865; Lincoln was assassinated on 14 April

What's Next

Chapter 10: Capstone: The Real Legacy — Rifled Muskets, Trenches, Railroads & the "First Modern War".