Battle of Fort Stedman

Description: In a last-gasp offensive, Gen. Robert E. Lee amassed nearly half of his army in an attempt to break through Grant’s Petersburg defenses and threaten his supply depot at City Point. Directed by Maj. Gen. John B. Gordon, the pre-dawn assault on March 25 overpowered the garrisons of Fort Stedman and Batteries X, XI, and XII. The Confederates were brought under a killing crossfire, and counterattacks led by Maj. Gens. Parke and Hartranft contained the breakthrough, cut off, and captured more than 1,900 of the attackers. During the day, elements of the II and VI Corps assaulted and captured the entrenched picket lines in their respective fronts, which had been weakened for the assault on Fort Stedman. This was a devastating blow for Lee’s army, setting up the Confederate defeat at Five Forks on April 1 and the fall of Petersburg on April 2-3.

The Battle of Fort Stedman was fought on March 25, 1865, during the final days of the American Civil War. The Union Army fortification in the siege lines around Petersburg, Virginia, was attacked in a pre-dawn Confederate assault by troops led by Maj. Gen. John B. Gordon. The attack was the last serious attempt by Confederate troops to break the Siege of Petersburg. After an initial system success, Gordon's men were driven back by Union troops of the IX Corps commanded by Maj. Gen. John G. Parke.

Background

In March 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee continued defending his positions around Petersburg, but his Army was weakened by desertion, disease, and shortage of supplies and he was outnumbered by his Union counterpart, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, by about 125,000 to 50,000. After the defeat of his subordinate, Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early, at the Battle of Waynesboro in the Shenandoah Valley, Lee realized that an additional 50,000 men under Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan would probably join Grant's army at Petersburg. Furthermore, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman was marching north through the Carolinas to join Grant as well. Lee had to avoid being outnumbered almost 4 to 1 by these arriving forces and he asked Maj. Gen. John B. Gordon for advice. Gordon replied that he had three recommendations, in decreasing order of preference: first, offer peace terms to the enemy; second, retreat from Richmond and Petersburg, link up with the Confederate army in North Carolina under General Joseph E. Johnston, jointly defeat Sherman, and then go after Grant; third, fight without delay. An argument ensued, with Lee rejecting the political implications of the first choice and indicating the difficulty of the second, but Gordon left the meeting with the impression that Lee was considering those options. On March 6, however, Gordon was summoned back to headquarters and Lee told him that "there seemed to be but one thing that we could do—fight. To stand still was death. It cou...