On April 1, 1865, a Union victory at the Battle of Five Forks had finally rendered the Confederate defense of Richmond and Petersburg impossible. The Army of Northern Virginia, what was left of it, began to evacuate Petersburg on the evening of April 2 and had completely left it by the early morning hours of April 3. Union troops crossed the long besieged and now empty rebel fortifications before dawn that day and the city surrendered peacefully.
The impending fall of Petersburg also ended any thought of keeping the Union from taking Richmond. When the Confederate government officially announced on the afternoon of April 2 that it was fleeing the city, it set in motion chaos and disaster that would nearly ruin Richmond:
Despite every effort made on the part of the few remaining Confederate soldiers and the city's officials, chaos ruled Richmond that night. Knowing that the Union army was about to enter the town, and having heard how badly the city of Columbia, South Carolina had fared when Union soldiers discovered the stores of whisky, Richmond's officials ordered all liquor to be destroyed. In the need for haste, however, those men charged with going through the stocks of every saloon and warehouse found the most expedient way was to smash the bottles and pour the kegs into the gutters and down the street drains. The stench attracted crowds. They gulped the whisky from the curbstones, picked it up in their hats and boots, and guzzled it before stooping for more. So the action taken to prevent a Union army rampage started a rampage by the city's own people.
Looters roamed the streets of Richmond that night and fires burned down much of the center of the city. Union troops entered the city on the morning of April 3 and reestablished order.
Meanwhile, Lee and his army were moving west in hopes of resupplying and then moving south to meet up with Joe Johnston's reorganized Army of Tennessee in North Carolina. Lee believed the combined forces, now that he was free from the constraints around defending Richmond, might hold off the Union armies for a considerable time.
Unfortunately for Lee, the promised supplies included munitions, but no food for his men. Precious time was lost and Union troops under Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan caught up with Lee and blocked his way by the evening of April 5. Lee continued to try to maneuver around Sheridan and his men, but with other Union forces arriving to reinforce Sheridan, parts of Lee's command were forced to fight in the Battle of Sayler's Creek.
While Union casualties for the Battle of Sayler's Creek numbered around 1,150, the Confederate forces engaged lost around 7,700 killed, wounded, and captured. Effectively the death knell of the Army of Northern Virginia, Confederate losses at Sayler's Creek represented approximately a quarter of Lee's remaining strength. Riding out from Rice's Depot, Lee saw the survivors of Ewell's and Anderson's corps streaming west and exclaimed, "My God, has the army dissolved?" Consolidating his men at Farmville early on April 7, Lee was able to partially re-provision his men before being forced out by early afternoon.
The Union pursuit was relentless and Lee was finding his escape routes blocked at every turn. Instead of renewed hope in meeting up with Johnston in North Carolina, the end was now in sight.
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