Burkeville Junction was where the Richmond and Danville Railroad, the most direct route to North Carolina, crossed the South Side Railroad, which ran west to Farmville. Gen. Robert E. Lee planned to lead the Army of Northern Virginia down the former rail line from Amelia Court House, but when part of the Army of the Potomac, one of the Union armies commanded by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, blocked the way at Jetersville on April 5, 1865, Lee turned west. He intended to follow the South Side Railroad through Farmville toward Lynchburg, then march south again and unite his army with that of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina. Instead, surrounded and outnumbered at Appomattox Court House, he surrendered on April 9, 1865. That morning, not long before the surrender arrangements were made, Gen. Thomas A. Smyth, who had been mortally wounded north of Farmville on April 7, died about 4 a.m. in Burke’s Tavern near here, becoming the last Union general to die in the Civil War.