When the smoke cleared at Fort Stedman on the morning of March 25, 1865, Robert E. Lee sat in grim silence. He’d gambled everything on Gordon’s daring dawn assault. Instead, thousands of irreplaceable veterans lay dead, wounded, or captured, and the lines around Petersburg were stretched thinner than ever.
Lee understood the terrible truth: there was only one option left—retreat. But even that narrow door was closing.
He wasn't the only one who understood the moment. At Union headquarters, Grant and Meade seized the initiative with cold precision. This was the crack in Lee’s armor they’d been waiting for. If they could break the lines here and now, the Army of Northern Virginia might never recover.
So while the ground was still littered with the bodies of the fallen at Fort Stedman, Union forces began to move.
"Press Them at Every Point"
Meade’s orders to his subordinates were clear and urgent: test the Confederate lines everywhere. If there was a weakness, they were to drive through it without mercy.
Major General Andrew Humphreys of the 2nd Corps and Major General Horatio Wright of the 6th Corps read those orders with grim determination.
As the dawn fighting faded, the air was filled with the acrid stench of powder and the caw of crows gathering over the dead. In that grim atmosphere, Wright sent Meade a message that read like a hunter’s instinct:
“As the enemy must have massed on right of our line, they must have left their own line weak. How would it do for us to attack along the whole length of our line?”
Humphreys offered a similar proposal. Meade didn’t hesitate.
By 8:30 a.m., once it was clear Fort Stedman was safely back in Union hands, he ordered them both forward.
Humphreys Moves First
Humphreys wasted no time. His 2nd Corps stormed out of their works, crossing muddy fields and rolling hills toward the Confederate picket lines near the Watkins House.
Confederate skirmishers fired and fell back, leaving smoldering fires and torn earthworks behind them.
By late morning, the bluecoats were digging in atop those captured rifle pits. Confederate General Henry Heth’s division launched counterattack after counterattack to claw back the line. The fighting was savage and personal—bayonets, clubbed muskets, men grappling in the mud.
By dusk, Humphreys still held the ground, bloodied but unbroken.
Wright's Costly Delay
But on the Union right, things moved more slowly. Wright hesitated, despite the pressing orders from Meade. Time bled away, precious hours lost while Lee’s men regained their balance.
Finally, at 1 p.m., Wright ordered a single division under General Truman Seymour to advance.
Seymour turned to Lieutenant Colonel George B. Damon of the 10th Vermont and gave him the hard task: lead the first push. Damon assembled a line of 600 men—New Jerseyans, Vermonters, Ohioans—bayonets gleaming.
Damon’s voice was low and calm as he briefed them:
“When you see the next post on your right advance you are to do the same. Fix bayonets, deploy as you go. Do not cheer nor fire a shot until you reach the enemy’s breastworks.”
They surged forward under gray clouds.
But the promise of success crumbled in an instant. Confederate muskets flashed from the picket lines at Jones’s Farm. Artillery belched flame.
Men screamed, fell, ran. Lieutenant Colonel Charles Cornyn of the 122nd Ohio remembered the chaos bitterly:
“A check was given to the advance by the increased fire from the enemy, and the opening of their artillery, and an immediate fall-back took place.”
The Clash of Tempers
Wright was furious at the failure. But so was Brigadier General J. Warren Keifer, whose Ohioans had been butchered. He railed at the incompetence that had ordered the slaughter.
Yet when Wright demanded another assault to support Humphreys, Keifer didn’t hesitate. He demanded to lead it himself.
This time, Wright sent in the heavyweights: Keifer’s brigade, Damon’s shattered Vermont and New Jersey line, and Getty’s entire division, including the hard-fighting Vermont Brigade under Lewis Grant.
The Assault at 3 p.m.
At 3 p.m., the Union soldiers rose from their rifle pits, bugles crying the charge.
The ground was churned to mud by thousands of feet. Union flags snapped in the cold breeze.
Lieutenant Colonel McKinnie of the 126th Ohio would never forget it:
“The regiment leaped over our intrenched picket-line and rushed upon the rebel line under a heavy fire of musketry, capturing almost all of the enemy’s pickets in our front.”
The Confederates broke.
Lieutenant Colonel Amasa Tracy of the 2nd Vermont, spotting Rebels streaming from Jones’s Farm, bellowed:
“Charge and take the Jones house!”
The men surged in, driving the Confederates before them like autumn leaves in wind.
By 3:10 p.m., the advanced Confederate picket line was firmly in Union hands.
Hyde’s Folly
But victory wasn’t yet secure. Colonel Thomas Hyde, ordered to hold in reserve, refused to be left out of the glory. He advanced his brigade alongside Grant’s Vermonters, pushing deeper toward the main Confederate works.
He didn’t know the ground. Suddenly his men hit an artificial pond—an impassable obstacle. Exposed, isolated, they scrambled to pull back, but Hyde’s right flank was in the air.
The Rebel Counterattack
Opposite them, Major General Cadmus Wilcox’s tough veterans waited. Lane’s North Carolinians, Thomas’s Georgians, and McGowan’s South Carolinians watched the Union line approach.
McGowan’s South Carolinians were first to respond.
“They opened fire upon the enemy, many of them shooting into the very faces of the assailants. But it was of no avail.”
The Federals held.
Thomas’s Georgians, however, were not finished. At 3:30 p.m., Colonel Simmons led the 45th and 49th Georgia forward with a rebel yell that sent chills through Northern hearts.
Captain John Hardeman remembered it vividly:
“With a yell from one end of our line to the other that made the ‘welkin ring’, we were up and at them like a ‘thousand of bricks’. Our line was good, our yell frightful, our fire murderous, and our victory complete.”
Hyde’s men broke and ran.
Union Artillery Replies
Union guns roared in reply, belching smoke and flame. Wright ordered Warner’s brigade to stabilize the front.
Hyde rallied what he could. Reinforcements poured in—Hamblin’s, Edwards’s brigades—forming a battle line two miles wide.
At 5 p.m., they advanced in unison, flags snapping, muskets ready. Captain Hardeman watched the tide turn:
“The hill was blue as far as we could see, both to the right and left.”
Thomas tried to pull his Georgians back, but many never heard the order. They died in the muddy trenches or surrendered where they stood.
A Burning End
Darkness fell. The air was cold, damp, and deadly quiet.
But McGowan’s sharpshooters weren’t finished. They crept back into the wreckage of Jones’s Farm, picking off Union officers in the failing light.
One bullet grazed Hyde himself. Enraged, he ordered the house burned.
Lieutenant Caldwell watched the glow:
“Presently a bright flame shot up, then another. In a few minutes the house was one huge flame of fire, lighting up the fields for a great distance around.”
The fiery ruin marked the end of March 25th’s fighting.
The Cost
Humphreys’s 2nd Corps lost 690 men. Wright’s 6th Corps lost 479. Confederate losses are estimated around 1,600—men Lee could never replace.
But the real price was strategic. The Federals had captured the advanced picket line in front of Hill’s 3rd Corps, putting them closer than ever to the main Confederate trenches.
Humphreys would later say:
“It was this capture of the intrenched picket line of the enemy that made it practicable for General Wright to carry the enemy’s main line of intrenchments by assault on the morning of the 2nd of April.”
The Battle of Jones’s Farm wasn’t the final blow—but it helped set the stage for Petersburg’s fall and Lee’s long retreat toward Appomattox.
