Looking Through Lee’s Eyes

BY KATHERINE CALOS - Staff Writer
Published: July 21, 2008

Virginia’s network of Civil War Trails can take you here, there and everywhere around the state. The place they take you first is through Amelia County on the path of Lee’s Retreat.

The route followed by Confederate soldiers between their defeat at Petersburg on April 2, 1865, and their final surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, was made into an official trail in 1995.

Highway signs, interpretive markers and short-range radio broadcasts tell the story at eight Amelia sites, along with other sites in neighboring counties.

Lee’s Retreat was so successful that the Civil War Trails program expanded throughout Virginia and neighboring states. Later trails were constructed without radio broadcasts to cut down on costs and maintenance.

In Amelia County, the trail leads from Namozine Church through Amelia Courthouse to Sailor’s Creek Battlefield Historical State Park.

For much of that distance, the rural landscape makes it easy to imagine the troops marching nearly 150 years ago.

One of Four Routes

Wooded lanes, pastures, and farm fields have not yet been overtaken by suburbs.

One of Four Routes When Union soldiers broke through at Petersburg, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee ordered soldiers to abandon Petersburg and Richmond and come to Amelia Courthouse for resupply. Troops followed four routes, said Chris Calkins, chief of interpretation for the Petersburg National Battlefield. He looked at all four before mapping Lee’s Retreat nearly 20 years ago.

“Three of the four were through highly populated areas, and all people would be seeing would be more subdivisions,” Calkins said. “We chose the fourth route, which begins in downtown Petersburg and goes to Pamplin Park and on to Namozine Church” at the eastern edge of Amelia County. A cavalry skirmish took place there on April 3, 1865.

“That church is a gem,” Calkins said. “When I take tours, I take people inside. It’s a time capsule. The interior, the flooring, the woodwork, the benches are all original from 1847.”

Other visitors will have to content themselves with the narrator’s description of a “running fight at every high ground, crossroads or church.”

Southern forces tried to hold off pursuing cavalry led by Gen. George Armstrong Custer. More than 350 Confederates were captured at Namozine. 

Losing the Lead

From Lee’s perspective, it wasn’t until he reached Amelia Courthouse that the situation really began falling apart, Calkins said. The needed supplies never arrived, and some of the troops from Richmond were delayed.

“Initially he had a one-day lead, but he lost it waiting for this other group and trying to forage for supplies.”

If you do some foraging of your own, you’ll probably have more success. A gift shop and antiques shop around Courthouse Square offer a nice break from the war.

Back on the trail, you’ll follow U.S. 360 to Jetersville, where Lee’s delay had allowed Union troops to cut off his intended route to Danville. He was forced to go west, hoping to get supplies via the South Side Railroad in Farmville. A 23-mile night march almost succeeded in eluding the Unionists, until alert federal pickets spotted the rear guard. As the narrator says, “The chase was on.”

Sailor’s Creek was where Lee’s army fought its final battles on Thursday, April 6, 1865.

Listen to the commentary at Marshall’s Crossroads, where Amelia, Nottoway and Prince Edward counties meet at the entrance to Sailor’s Creek Battlefield Historical State Park, and you’ll hear the action described as a butchery.

After a 20-minute artillery bombardment, Union soldiers waved white handkerchiefs at the Confederates as an “invitation to surrender,” the narrator says. When the reply came by way of two musket volleys, Union soldiers attacked.

“I saw men kill each other with bayonettes and even bite each other’s throats and eyes and ears,” one witness recalled. Almost a quarter of the Confederate forces were killed or captured. 

More to Come

At the Hillsman House on a typical Thursday now, the sound of bird calls is likely to be the loudest thing you’ll hear. The ridge where Confederate soldiers massed is covered with woods. A spreading maple tree offers shade near the white clapboard house where the Hillsman family lived.

By the time the 150th anniversary of the Civil War begins in 2011, the site is likely to have more interpretation and staff. A museum is slated to be built, and Calkins will move from the National Park Service to be superintendent of the state park site. A rails-to-trails state park also will follow the path of the South Side Railroad to the High Bridge over the Appomattox, where another important skirmish took place.

At Appomattox Court House, the war in Virginia ended. Lee surrendered, and the nation once more was whole.

Let the war be your guide on a Civil War Trail, and you may find your own way to peace.

IF YOU’RE GOING TO AMELIA COUNTY:

Getting there: Amelia Courthouse is about 30 miles south of Richmond on U.S. 360. If you want to follow the Lee’s Retreat Civil War Trail from its beginning in Petersburg to its end in Appomattox, plan on spending a day.

Details: Virginia Civil War Trails, http://www.varetreat.com or (800) 673-8732.