Deatonville

Through early morning showers on April 6, 1865, Gen. Robert E. Lee's weary men and creaking wagons slogged west toward Farmville expecting rations. They passed through Deatonville, a cluster of half-a-dozen brick farmhouses, and marched down the road. Gen. John B. Gordon, following the wagon train with his Second Corps as the rear guard, later recalled those endless days as an almost continuous shifting battle, with lines alternately forming, fighting, and retreating from hilltop to hilltop. As pursuing Federal forces closed in, Gen. William G. Lewis's North Carolina brigade and Gen. Clement Evans' Georgia brigade hastily erected a formidable line of rifle pits and breastworks nearby. When Union Gen. Byron R. Pierce's brigade and Lt. Col. William Hobson's 17th Maine Infantry struck Gordon's line, a brief, vicious fight followed. Maj. Charles Mattocks took command after Hobson was wounded in the thigh and charged over the breastworks with the colors and as many of the regiment as could keep up, capturing about one hundred men, ten or twelve officers, and one battle flag of the 21st North Carolina Infantry. Confederate artillery and three hundred of Gordon's men escaped, but Federal forces also captured part of the wagon train, which a soldier described as loaded with furniture, silver plate, libraries, costly wardrobes, and almost everything that could be moved as wealthy people fled Richmond and Petersburg.

Virginia · United States