After Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant broke through Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s lines at Petersburg on April 2, 1865, Lee ordered the evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond and the Army of Northern Virginia retreated west on several roads with Grant in pursuit. Lee planned to turn south and join Gen. Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina, but Grant kept part of his force between Lee and that objective, and on April 9, surrounded at Appomattox Court House, Lee surrendered. On the morning of April 4, 1865, Confederate Gen. Richard S. Ewell learned that his column could not cross the rain-swollen Appomattox River at Genito Bridge because pontoons had not been laid there, so the column marched three miles south and crossed on the Richmond and Danville Railroad bridge at Mattoax Station. Confederate soldier McHenry Howard recalled that after repairs to the flooring and the passage of a large artillery train, the men halted, cooked a scanty supply of flour, and at dark filed by twos across the bridge, carefully marching between the rails. That night, after burning the bridge behind them, Ewell’s men camped near a plantation called The Oaks. Lee’s army was to rendezvous at Amelia Court House for resupply by railroad and by Gen. G.W. Custis Lee’s wagon train, which had crossed the river far to the west at Clementown Bridge, but Federal cavalry under Gen. Henry E. Davies, Jr., intercepted the train near Paineville. Pvt. William Wilson of the 12th Virginia Cavalry later recalled panic among the wagons nearest the river as the road became blocked and supplies and equipment were thrown out while teams were cut loose in a rush for the bridge. Davies captured 200 wagons, 320 prisoners, 310 teamsters, possibly newly recruited black Confederates, and 11 battle flags.