Random events can on occasion change the course of history – such is the case when several Confederate generals were literally out to lunch when their army was attacked during one of the most crucial battles of the Civil War.
On March 31, a Confederate attack brought a Union offensive to a halt. Federal infantry moving from the left flank forced General George Pickett to pull back from Dinwiddie Courthouse and dig in at the vital junction of five roads outside Petersburg, Virginia called Five Forks. General Robert E. Lee ordered Pickett, “Hold Five Forks at all hazards.” Strategically, Five Forks at that moment was the most important real estate in North America. If the Union could cut the railroad and wagon roads that supplied Petersburg and Richmond, the Army of Northern Virginia would be denied its supply lines and a major route of escape. Five Forks had to hold, and Lee’s order called for a fight to the death, if necessary.
The day before, Major General Thomas “Tex” Rosser moved his division to join General Fitzhugh Lee, the nephew of Robert E. Lee, at Five Forks. He crossed the Nottoway River and noticed the waters teamed with fish—shad making their annual migration. Rosser could not resist the temptation to fish. Borrowing a net from a local farmer, the Confederate major general, his manservant, and his staff plunged into the river, hauling in scores of the silvery green delicacy, and cooked some for dinner. The excess shad went into Rosser’s headquarters’ wagon.
On April 1, in a throwback to an earlier time before the country had been torn apart by the raging war, the Southern gentleman decided to invite his fellow Confederate generals, George Pickett and Fitzhugh Lee, to a luncheon two miles to the rear of the lines. Enslaved men served the officers shad, and Madeira flowed into their glasses. The Southern officers lingered at Tex Rosser’s camp for hours. Crucially, the generals failed to tell their seconds where they would be located. An attack was not expected that day, and warning signs were ignored. At 3 p.m., Rosser’s pickets warned that Yankees were approaching the camp. The three generals listened for gunfire; hearing none, they returned to their lunch and drink. A natural phenomenon known as an acoustic echo canceled the thunderous sounds of battle raging at Five Forks.
Rosser’s Brigade Receipt
General Pickett then requested couriers to send a dispatch to his troops. To their horror, the courier was captured shortly after he rode off. A second courier limped back to the camp, reporting the nearby woods to be crawling with Yankees. Pickett escaped but was too late to prevent the unfolding disaster.
General Philip Sheridan’s cavalry attacked Pickett’s main line in a frontal assault to pin down the Confederates while awaiting Major General Gouverneur K. Warren’s V Corps to hit Pickett’s left flank. The attack wavered and stalled. Warren’s men did not come into position until 4 p.m. Ever the encourager, Sheridan rode his steed Winchester back and forth in front of the lines, cheering his men, “Come on, men!” he cried. “Go at ’em with a will!” Sheridan was attacking a position known as the angle where the Confederates were trying to protect their left flank.
Gen. Philip Sheridan at the Battle of Five Forks, April 1, 1865. Public Domain
Sheridan charged into his floundering lines and called, “Where is my battle-flag?” Waving the standard above his head, he rallied his men, “shaking his fist, encouraging, threatening, praying, swearing, the very incarnation of battle.” All around him, chaos reigned. “Bullets were humming like a swarm of bees.”
Sheridan led the crucial breakthrough, thanks to intelligence on the extent and strongpoints of the Confederate lines furnished by his Jessie Scouts.
The full details of this remarkable story are told in my bestselling book, The Unvanquished: The Untold Story of Lincoln’s Special Forces, the Manhunt for Mosby’s Rangers, and the Shadow War That Forged America’s Special Operations. The book reveals the drama of the irregular guerrilla warfare that altered the course of the Civil War including the story of Lincoln’s special forces who donned Confederate gray to hunt Mosby and his Confederate Rangers from 1863 to the war’s end at Appomattox—a previously untold story that inspired the creation of U.S. modern special operations in World War II.The book also captures the story of the Confederate Secret Service.
Bestselling author Patrick K. O’Donnell’s “The Unvanquished: The Untold Story of Lincoln’s Special Forces, the Manhunt for Mosby’s Rangers, and the Shadow War That Forged America’s Special Operations”
The V Corps assailed Pickett’s left flank and enveloped it, capturing thousands of men as Pickett’s force collapsed, opening the path to the South Side Railroad. The railroad would soon be lost and with it all supply to Petersburg and Richmond. Five Forks would become one of the most crucial battles of the Civil War. The celebration was rapturous. “Cheers were resounding on all sides, and everybody was riotous over the victory.” As an additional sign of triumph, the cooks from the supply wagons kindled fires for the boilers to prepare coffee to quench the thirst of the men.
General Ulysses S. Grant followed up Five Forks by ordering a massive all-corps attack on April 2 at Petersburg. Shortly after midnight, hundreds of Union guns opened up on the Confederate trenches and continued their bombardment until 4:00 a.m., when teams of Union pioneers hacked through obstacles followed by tens of thousands of troops. Lee immediately initiated plans to evacuate the trenches and sent a desperate telegram to Jefferson Davis, interrupting his Sunday church services and informing him that he could no longer hold Petersburg. Afterward, the Army of Northern Virginia commenced a desperate race to outrun the Union Army that ended in Appomattox and marked the beginning of the end of the war for the South.
Patrick K. O’Donnell is a bestselling, critically-acclaimed military historian and an expert on special operations units. He is the author of thirteen books, including his new bestselling book on the Civil War The Unvanquished: The Untold Story of Lincoln’s Special Forces, the Manhunt for Mosby’s Rangers, and the Shadow War That Forged America’s Special Operations, which makes a great Christmas gift and currently in the front display of Barnes & Noble stores nationwide. O’Donnell’s other bestsellers include: The Indispensables, The Unknowns, and Washington’s Immortals. He served as a volunteer combat historian in a Marine rifle platoon during the Battle of Fallujah and often speaks on espionage, special operations, and counterinsurgency. He has provided historical consulting for DreamWorks’ award-winning miniseries Band of Brothers and documentaries produced by Fox, the History Channel, and Discovery. PatrickKODonnell.com @combathistorian
