About 4:15 pm on April 1st, 1865, near Gravelly Run Methodist Episcopal Church, as Union General Romeyn Ayres finished aligning his men, his division received the order to attack. Generals Phillip Sheridan and Gouverneur Warren, along with Colonel Horace from General Grant's staff, rode at the front of the line. Union skirmishers drove in the Confederate outposts, and after a staff officer warned Ayres of signs of the enemy to the left, he instructed his reserve brigade commander, Brevet Brigadier General Frederick Winthrop, to be ready to move forward. After Ayres's division crossed White Oak Road, Confederate General Matthew Ransom's brigade opened fire from a thick belt of woods that Warren later said disrupted Confederate aim and reduced Union casualties. Ayres shifted his front to the left to meet the return of the Confederate line, creating a gap that he filled with Winthrop's brigade. His men faltered briefly under closer and more accurate fire from Ransom's brigade, but Sheridan rode along the battle line shouting encouragement, and Sheridan, Ayres, and their officers quickly steadied the troops and sent them forward again. Ayres's men captured the position, described as key to the entire Confederate line, took more than 1,000 prisoners, and seized eight battle flags, but Winthrop was mortally wounded among the Union casualties. Born on August 3rd, 1839, in New York City, the 25-year-old Winthrop was taken back to Gravelly Run Church, then serving as a field hospital, where he died of his wounds. His body was returned to New York for burial at Green Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York. In an April 13, 1865, New York Times obituary, he was praised for rising from private to brigade commander, for a stainless record in the Army of the Potomac and in the principal battles fought in the East, and for a character remembered for quiet heroism, noble self-sacrifice, kind genial manners, frankhearted bearing, and gentle courtesy.