Lee's Last Offensive

Before dawn on March 25, 1865, more than 10,000 Confederates massed in and around Colquitt's Salient to attack Fort Stedman in an effort to force the Federals to draw in their lines so part of Lee's army could escape from Petersburg and join Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army in North Carolina. At 4 a.m. a lone rifle shot signaled the opening of the assault, and the Confederates stormed across no-man's land in three columns, each led by axemen and a storming party of 100 men. The attack plan called for one column, once in Fort Stedman, to push along the Union entrenchments to the right and expand the breach, another to move to the left, and a third to plunge straight ahead deep into Union lines. The Confederate attack on Fort Stedman failed.

Petersburg, Virginia · United States