Battle of Sutherland's Station
37°11′51″N 77°33′45″W / 37.19750°N 77.56250°W
Battle of Sutherland's Station | |||||||
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Part of the American Civil War | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
United States (Union) | Confederate States (Confederacy) | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Nelson A. Miles |
Henry Heth Cadmus M. Wilcox[1] | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
1,500[2] | 3,000[2] | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
370[1] | 600[1] |
The Battle of Sutherland's Station was an
Union columns converged on Petersburg on April 2, pushing through a large section of the Confederate defensive entrenchments. As Robert E. Lee desperately sought to buy time to allow his army to withdraw, Ulysses S. Grant launched several other attacks. Stubborn Confederate resistance at Fort Gregg delayed Grant's progress. Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Nelson A. Miles's Union division battered Henry Heth's Confederates near Sutherland's Station and drove them off the field. The Confederate defenders were scattered and driven northwestward. With this victory, the Federals possessed the South Side Railroad, Gen. Robert E. Lee's last supply line into Petersburg. However, the lengthy defense of Fort Gregg and Grant's hesitation in aggressively following up on his success at Sutherland's Station permitted Lee to evacuate his army that night.
Battle
Gen.
Robert E. Lee, realizing that the loss of so much of his defensive perimeter had now doomed the city, issued orders to evacuate Petersburg. He sent word to his remaining commanders to hold as long as they could to allow an orderly retreat. Federal troops repeatedly attacked Fort Gregg (held by only 500 Confederate defenders), but failed to quickly seize the vital fort, allowing Lee time to establish an inner defensive line to protect his army's rear as it retired.
Grant turned his attention to the west, where the South Side Railroad had provided a vital last supply line for Lee's beleaguered troops. Maj. Gen.
Miles pursued the retiring Confederates up the Claiborne Road as far as Sutherland's Station (nineteen miles from Petersburg). There, Heth had regrouped four Confederate brigades in an attempt to defend the South Side Railroad, their left flank anchored at Ocran Methodist Church. By now, Heth had learned that Lt. Gen. A. P. Hill had been killed earlier in the day, and now he was in command of the Third Army Corps as its senior division commander. Dodging Federal patrols, he hastened to Petersburg, where he found that Lee had instead decided to disband the corps and give its units to James Longstreet.
At 3:00 p.m., Miles struck north from White Oak Road and launched his initial attack under orders from Grant to follow up on Humphreys's initial breakthrough. Heth's division repulsed two Federal attacks before Miles sent for reinforcements. As had been the case for the II Corps all morning, Humphreys backtracked to Sutherland Station to reinforce Miles. However, Miles launched a third assault and Heth's weary Confederates finally buckled, then broke. John R. Cooke's brigade stubbornly held up the Federals as the remainder of Heth's troops headed west. Miles's victorious men pushed ahead and captured nearly 1,000 prisoners and 2 artillery pieces. In the meantime, Grant had delayed the final attack on Fort Gregg while he awaited news regarding Miles' outcome, another delay that helped Lee evacuate more troops from Petersburg. By the time that the fort finally fell, Lee had bought enough time to successfully extricate the vast majority of his army.
In the savage fighting around Sutherland's Station, Miles reported 370 casualties, while the Confederates lost approximately 600 men killed or wounded, plus 1,000 taken as
References
- ^ a b c d National Park Service description Archived May 27, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b CWSAC Report Update
Sources
- Marvel, William, Lee's Last Retreat: The Flight to Appomattox, The University of North Carolina Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8078-2745-2.
- National Park Service description
- CWSAC Report Update