Military
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With their left at the Angle shattered and their center near the Five Forks intersection overrun, the Confederates made a final stand in and around Gilliam’s field. Across open ground, Brig. Gen. George Armstrong Custer led two Union cavalry brigades in a wild charge against the Confederate right flank, where Southern horsemen under Maj. Gen. W.H.F. Lee held off the Federals. Along the White Oak Road, infantrymen of Brig. Gen. Montgomery Corse’s Virginia brigade struggled against an attack by Union infantry moving westward. Although Corse’s troops were overrun, their efforts allowed Pickett’s remaining 7,000 men to escape to the north. Pickett’s survivors did not rejoin the main Confederate army until three days later at Amelia Court House. The defeat at Five Forks forced Lee to abandon the Petersburg lines and the capital at Richmond. Eight days later, caught in a vise of Union troops, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House.
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Virginia · United States
