The final battle

County Court House now the visitors center

The morning of April 9, 1865 the fog settled into the fields of Appomattox Court House. The 100 residents  had been waiting for the railroad boon to come their way, but the rolling landscape did not make for the best place to lay track, so it had been run south of them. Their claim on the economy was simply as the county seat. Mr. Peers, the county clerk lived to the east, the Clover Hill tavern lay to to the north and the Mclean House to the west of the Central Courthouse.

It was a simple village that had not seen any of the war come to their front yards for the 4 devastating years. But the previous night, they could hear the cannon and gunfire 3 miles away as the armies fought at Appomattox Station.  Another part of Lee's army was also now stationed to the east of their town. His desperate aim: to break through the Union cavalry to join up with Johnston in North Carolina.

And so, what was to be the final real battle of this war, the battle of Appomattox Court House, began around 7:30 am.

On the ridge to the west was Custer's cavalry, the the east Lee's artillery and infantry.  Lee's men were charged to attack with all their might which drove back the horses for a time. What Lee did not know was that Grant's army had now arrived after marching without stopping from all directions, surrounding any escape route. The 70,000 men of the Army of the Potomac, the Army of the Shenandoah, and now from the south the great Army of the James were about to stage their final blow to the 22,000 men of the Army of Northern Virginia.

Back and forth they fought and on this day 150 years later, the fog settled in again after a ferocious early morning  thunderstorm that left the old stagecoach road muddy. But to the 100 or so of us who arrived to watch, did not mind the mud or the fog knowing this added to our witnessing of history.

The reenactment lasted two and a half hours until the final and inevitable end.

A rider arrives with the truce flag