U.S. Colored Troops at Appomattox

M-42

On the morning of 9 April 1865, Union forces closed in on Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. The Confederates attacked Union cavalry near here, trying to break through to the west. Their advance faltered when Union infantry, including two brigades of U.S. Colored Troops, arrived on the field. Among the 5,000 Black soldiers who helped block Lee’s escape were formerly enslaved men, free-born African Americans, and foreign-born individuals of African descent. Lee surrendered to Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant later that day. African Americans long commemorated 9 April as a day of liberation, celebrating the role played by Black soldiers in the final defeat of Lee’s army.

Department of Historic Resources, 2022

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

“The Battle of Appomattox Court House,” NPS: https://www.nps.gov/apco/learn/historyculture/the-battle-of-appomattox-court-house.htm Chris Calkins, “Final Bloodshed at Appomattox,” America’s Civil War, vol. 14 issue 2 (May 2001), 34-40. “United States Colored Troops at Appomattox,” NPS: https://www.nps.gov/apco/learn/historyculture/united-states-colored-troops-at-appomattox.htm Report of Maj. Gen. Edward O.C. Ord, 26 April 1865, The War of the Rebellion, ser.1, vol.46, part 1, 1160-1164. Report of Maj. Gen. John Gibbon, 24 April 1865, The War of the Rebellion, ser.1, vol.46, part 1, 1173-1175. Elizabeth R. Varon, “The Last Hour of the Slaveholders’ Rebellion,” in Caroline E. Janney ed., Petersburg to Appomattox: The End of the War in Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018).