Late on the morning of Monday, April 3, 1865, part of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia briefly halted at the Chesterfield County seat as the army withdrew from the Richmond-Petersburg fronts after Federal attacks the previous day broke through Lee’s lines at Petersburg and ended the siege there. The last Confederates left the line that night when the moon went down, and one member of the 12th Virginia Infantry later remembered the sadness of that night while on picket duty outside Petersburg. The army withdrew in four columns, three through Chesterfield County and one through Dinwiddie County, planning to reunite at Amelia Court House south of the Appomattox River. General William Mahone’s troops were ordered to take the road by Chesterfield Court House and then continue by old Colville to Goode’s Bridge on the Appomattox River north of Amelia Court House. After arriving there, they formed a line of battle to resist an expected enemy dash that never came, then resumed the march and camped that night on Captain Flournoy’s farm. A soldier wrote that despite the strain of the day’s march he felt better than the night before and that the troops had resolved to fight to the bitter end. The next morning the column marched to Goode’s Bridge. Mahone later recalled that when his division reached Chesterfield Court House before noon on April 3, the courthouse grounds were crowded with military wagons and with women and children who had fled mainly from Petersburg, and that the halt allowed the troops to breakfast while he worked to move along the wagons and the retreating caravan of vehicles and people.