A Desperate Evening: The Battle of Appomattox Station, April 8, 1865
The cold dusk of April 8th, 1865 settled over the red clay roads and budding trees of central Virginia, bringing with it a tense, expectant hush. In the quiet railroad stop of Appomattox Station, four heavily laden supply trains idled on the tracks.
Inside their cars lay everything the Army of Northern Virginia so desperately needed: crates of clothing for ragged men, blankets against the chill, medical stores for the wounded, and—most precious of all—food for the starving ranks.
It was Lee’s last hope of salvation.
Custer’s Men Strike
Word of the supply trains reached Brevet Major General George A. Custer, whose cavalry division was famed for reckless speed and ferocity. Without hesitation, he pushed his troopers forward along the wagon road that paralleled the Southside Railroad, the 2nd New York Cavalry in the lead.
The sun sagged lower in the sky as they closed on Appomattox Station, a mere scatter of houses in the twilight. A squad of Confederate cavalry tried to guard the trains, but they were outnumbered and outpaced.
Fred Blodgett of the 2nd New York rode straight up to one locomotive, carbine leveled.
“Hands up!”
Engineers surrendered on the spot.
But the seizure was hardly bloodless. Even as Custer’s men scrambled to commandeer the train cars, the night erupted with the crash of Confederate artillery.
The Unexpected Artillery Battle
These shells came screaming in from the east—from Brigadier General Reuben Lindsay Walker’s Artillery Reserve, which had advanced to the head of Lee’s weary, westward-marching columns.
Walker’s men, nearly 100 guns, 200 baggage wagons, and a hospital train in tow, were totally unprepared for battle. Campfires burned. Tin cups of coffee steamed. Walker himself sat on a stump getting shaved by a grinning private when cries ripped through the woods:
“Yankees! Sheridan!”
Men scattered for horses. Others grabbed rifles or tried to limber their guns. A fourth supply train screeched backward so violently that couplings snapped, leaving most of its cars stranded.
Walker hastily gathered his available forces: Colonel Thomas Talcott’s engineers pressed into infantry service, General Martin Gary’s Cavalry Brigade (South Carolinians, Georgians, and Virginians), and a handful of artillerymen fighting on foot. They formed a ragged semicircle in the darkening woods.
Custer’s Reckless Assaults
Meanwhile, Custer’s bluecoats plunged forward. But the terrain was a tangled nightmare of vines and brush, better suited to foxes than cavalry.
Almer Montague of the 1st Vermont Cavalry remembered:
“We found on entering the woods that the underbrush and vines were too thick for us to march through and keep our organization… advancing ‘every man for himself.’”
As they tried to force their way in, Confederate batteries opened with savage volleys of grape and canister.
“A tornado of canister-shot swept over our heads,” wrote one New Yorker.
Horses screamed and toppled. Men fell in bloody heaps. The Federals fell back, regrouped, and tried again—only to be repulsed once more.
Desperate Fighting in the Gathering Darkness
Martin’s Virginia Battery fought with exceptional boldness, even moving their guns forward under fire to deliver devastating close-range discharges.
Custer ordered repeated probes, but coordination was impossible in the dense brush. The battle devolved into small knots of horsemen clashing with scattered infantrymen and artillery crews.
“Every man was fighting for himself and fighting like tigers,” Montague recalled.
Canister rounds smashed trees and men alike. Charles J. Bell—a future governor of Vermont—fell with an iron ball embedded in his hand.
In the swirl of melee near the Confederate guns, William Davis, color bearer of the Washington Artillery of New Orleans, was killed, staining the battery’s flag with his blood before it was seized by Private Barney Shields of the 2nd West Virginia Cavalry.
The cost was terrible on both sides. Confederate casualty numbers remain lost to history—perhaps 100 killed or wounded—but nearly 1,000 prisoners were taken, including Brigadier General Young Moody. Federal casualties were similarly heavy. One surgeon grimly noted:
“We had never treated so many extreme cases in so short a fight. The wounds were chiefly made by artillery, and were serious; many patients being badly mangled.”
The Final Charge and the Fall of the Artillery
As the last light failed, Custer called for one more charge. His men formed along a narrow lane that led into an open field studded with Confederate guns.
They spurred forward through a storm of shot. Horses tumbled, riders flew. But the momentum carried them straight into the battery itself.
“The next instant we were in the battery,” said Montague.
Bayonets and sabers slashed in the smoky gloom. Men grappled, stabbed, fired pistols point-blank. By the time the fighting ended, Custer’s troopers had captured 25 of Walker’s cannon.
Fighting in Appomattox Court House
Even as the battle at the station ended, Federal cavalry pressed farther west. Lieutenant Colonel Augustus Root led the 15th New York Cavalry up the Lynchburg-Richmond Stage Road into Appomattox Court House village itself.
They stormed in, capturing wagons and teamsters. Near the courthouse building, Jesse Hutchins of the 5th Alabama Battalion, a veteran of nearly four years of war, fell dead—his service ending the night before Lee would surrender.
Root himself was killed instantly when a South Carolinian sharpshooter put a bullet through his neck near the Rosser Blacksmith Shop. The Federals reeled back under fire from Brigadier General William Wallace’s South Carolina Brigade, who formed a last desperate line at the Peers House.
The New Yorkers retreated along the stage road, gathering prisoners and shooting mules to keep the Confederate army from salvaging any supplies.
The Strategic Result
By 9 p.m., the fighting petered out. Smoke clung to the tangled woods. Wounded men moaned in the darkness.
But the result was decisive. Custer’s men had smashed Walker’s artillery reserve, captured nearly 1,000 prisoners, and seized the vital Richmond-Lynchburg Stage Road—blocking Lee’s last line of retreat west.
That night, Lee gathered his generals for a grim council of war. He resolved to try to break through the Federal cavalry in the morning.
What he did not yet know was that during the night, three entire Union Corps—infantry columns tramping over 30 miles in forced marches—were closing in, ready to seal off any hope of escape.
At Appomattox Station on April 8, 1865, the final trap was sprung. The next day would see the last battle and the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia.
