page_title: Appomattox campaign
section_title: Sutherland's Station (April 2)
hierarchical_section_title: Appomattox campaign / Union offensive / Sutherland's Station (April 2)
context_page_description: The Appomattox campaign was a series of American Civil War battles fought March 29 – April 9, 1865, in Virginia that concluded with the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia to forces of the Union Army under the overall command of Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, marking the effective end of the war.
  As the Richmond–Petersburg campaign ended, Lee's army was outnumbered and exhausted from a winter of trench warfare over an approximately 40 mi front, numerous battles, disease, hunger and desertion. Grant's well-equipped and well-fed army was growing in strength. On March 29, 1865, the Union Army began an offensive that stretched and broke the Confederate defenses southwest of Petersburg and cut their supply lines to Petersburg and the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Union victories at the Battle of Five Forks on April 1, 1865, and the Third Battle of Petersburg, often called the Breakthrough at Petersburg, on April 2, 1865, opened Petersburg and Richmond to imminent capture. Lee ordered the evacuation of Confederate forces from both Petersburg and Richmond on the night of April 2–3 before Grant's army could cut off any escape.
context_section_description: The Battle of Sutherland's Station was fought about 19 miles (31 km) west of Petersburg along Cox Road and the Southside Railroad during the early afternoon at about the same time as the Battle for Fort Gregg during the Third Battle of Petersburg. At 6:00 a.m. on April 2, Major General Andrew A. Humphreys ordered Brigadier General William Hays to assault the Confederate redoubts opposite the II Corps' line, including the Crow House redoubt beside Hatcher's Run and Brigadier General (Brevet Major General) Gershom Mott to attack the line in front of his division. The II Corps faced the division of Major General Henry Heth in the line running from Hatcher's Run to White Oak Road. Heth's brigades were commanded by Brigadier General Samuel McGowan, Brigadier General John R. Cooke (part), Brigadier General William MacRae (part) and Colonel Joseph H. Hyman in lieu of Brigadier General Alfred Moore Scales, although temporarily commanded by Colonel Thomas S. Galloway of the 22nd North Carolina Infantry of Cadmus Wilcox's division. By 8:30 a.m., Humphreys's divisions held the Confederate works from Burgess's Mill to Claiborne Road. The retreating defenders withdrew to the northwest to Sutherland's Station on the South Side Railroad.
  Under orders from General Grant, Brigadier General Nelson A. Miles's division had been sent to reinforce Major General Philip Sheridan's command on the Five Forks battlefield at midnight on April 1 in the event an additional Confederate force were sent to attack Sheridan or a large force of Confederates in retreat might come upon his men. No Confederate force appeared and about 7:30 a.m., Miles headed back east on White Oak Road and sent a message about his movement to Humphreys. Miles found the Confederates gone from the fortifications at the end of their former main line and headed north on Claiborne Road in pursuit as Humphreys had ordered.
  Humphreys also ordered Mott and Hays as well as Miles to pursue Heth's men toward Sutherland's Station where he expected to attack a Confederate force consisting of Major General Henry Heth's retreating men, Lieutenant General Richard H. Anderson's command consisting of Bushrod Johnson's division and Eppa Hunton's brigade, which had been sent to Five Forks on April 1 too late to reinforce Pickett, and any available men from the scattered force of George Pickett and Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry. General Meade, who came out to meet Humphreys about 9:00 a.m., did not approve of this action and ordered Humphreys to move his corps toward Petersburg and connect with General Wright.
  Humphreys rode over the White Oak Road and Claiborne Road to recall Miles. Humphreys came upon Sheridan who wanted to keep Miles's division to help attack any remaining Confederate forces in the area but Humphreys told him of Meade's order. Humphreys later said he left Miles for Sheridan to command while Sheridan said that he declined further command of Miles's division in order to "avoid wrangles." Miles never commented under whose authority he proceeded to Sutherland's Station, but he did so without Humphreys's other divisions or other support from Sheridan or the V Corps. Humphreys and Sheridan left Miles with about 8,000 troops in four brigades, to the task of fighting the Confederates gathered at Sutherland's Station. Humphreys went back to join his two other divisions on the road to Petersburg.
  Miles was convinced he could defeat Heth's force, which was now under the command of Brigadier General John R. Cooke because Heth had been called to Petersburg to take charge of A.P. Hill's corps due to Hill's death. Cooke, who had four brigades totaling about 1,200 men from Heth's division, had been ordered by Heth to protect the supply trains already parked at Sutherland's Station. The entire Confederate force at Sutherland's Station was estimated by a staff officer at about 4,000 men. Cooke's men threw up a slender line of earthworks about 0.5 miles (0.80 km) long along Cox Road parallel to the railroad with an open field about 700 yards (640 m) with a slight slope in front. Heth had placed Cooke's
caption: Brigadier General Nelson A. Miles
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "1400", "Image YResolution": "1400", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Windows", "Image DateTime": "2005:04:09 12:26:32", "Image Artist": "Library of Congress", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "334", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5479", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1605", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2000"}