The Battle of White Oak Road

As the fight progressed, Confederate forces met stiffening resistance, and Lee and his subordinates realized they had too few troops to hold their advanced position, so they decided to withdraw to slight earthworks constructed by Federal soldiers just south of this point. Meanwhile, Union forces regrouped and received reinforcements, and at about 2:30 p.m. Union General Warren ordered a counterattack. Near this gun emplacement, General Robert E. Lee and General Bushrod R. Johnson watched the Union columns advance. When the final attack began, Federal General Joshua L. Chamberlain wrote that his men rushed forward without minding ranks or alignments, struck Hunton’s brigade in front, surged over the works, swung to the right, drove the enemy into entrenchments along the Claiborne Road, and established themselves across the White Oak Road facing northeast. Union troops secured a lodgment along the road and stood between the Confederates there and their compatriots a few miles west at Five Forks, preventing either group from reinforcing the other. Warren considered the Confederate defenses on the Claiborne Road too strong to assault and ended the fighting for the day. Casualties were heavy, with 1,865 Federals and an estimated 800 Confederates fallen, but Federal troops held the White Oak Road and the end was near.

Virginia · United States