“The Last Victory”: The Battle of Cumberland Church, April 7, 1865
Morning broke cold and gray on April 7th, 1865. Lee’s once-proud Army of Northern Virginia was in desperate flight, hounded every mile by Grant’s blue columns. The roads were carved into muddy gullies from the endless tramp of boots and hooves. Wagons and caissons splashed through flooded ruts, wheels sinking deep in the wet Virginia clay.
Before dawn, Confederate engineers set fire to the spans of High Bridge, hoping to buy precious hours. But the Federal advance forced ways across the Appomattox River. Some of Lee’s men—soaked, exhausted, hungry—fell back west along the railroad cut, pressed relentlessly by Barlow’s 2nd Division of the Union 2nd Corps. The Federal skirmishers never let them rest.
As they staggered west, Confederate columns turned onto Jamestown Road. There, they found salvation of a sort. William Mahone’s Division had arrived early that morning and already dug in on strong ground just south of Jamestown Road, on the Price Farm, about a half-mile north of Cumberland Church itself.
They cut brush for breastworks, piled logs into parapets, and scraped trenches with battered tin plates. Poague’s artillery unlimbered on the high rise just south of the road, perfectly placed to sweep the open Price Farm fields to the north where the Federals would soon appear.
Around noon, the rest of Humphreys’ 2nd Corps poured onto the Price Farm. Altogether, nearly 10,000 Union soldiers were converging on the Price Farm fields and house site north of Jamestown Road, facing roughly 6,000–7,000 Confederates bracing behind Mahone’s freshly dug lines.
The Bugle Call of Death
The air was thick with drizzle and powder smoke. Around 1 p.m., Union General Nelson Miles surveyed Mahone’s line from the north edge of the Price Farm. He ordered his veterans forward.
Out in front stood the bugler of the 148th Pennsylvania, Pvt. Joseph Harrison Law, bugle lifted to his lips in the chill. His notes rang shrill over the wet fields—a call to charge that electrified the line.
He fell dead almost at once, shot through before he could sound another note. But his first blast had already sent the 64th New York Infantry and parts of the 140th Pennsylvania surging south across the Price Farm toward Jamestown Road.
Mud sucked at their boots. Confederate cannon belched smoke and iron—6 to 8 Union soldiers fell at the first blasts from Poague’s guns. Still they pressed on, screaming, bayonets gleaming. They crashed through Mahone’s forward line and overran two of Williams’ North Carolina guns, seizing them in savage hand-to-hand combat.
High above Jamestown Road, Lee himself watched this break in horror. He spurred his horse forward, desperate to lead the rally. However, his men blocked his path, shouting:
“General, this is our job—not yours!”
Brigadier General William Lewis’s North Carolinians and Colonel David Cowand’s North Carolinians of Grimes’ Division countercharged with a roar. The fields erupted with musketry and the crack of rifle butts smashing skulls. In the chaos, the Confederates retook the captured guns.
When the smoke cleared, the Union troops were in ragged retreat back north of Jamestown Road, leaving dozens of dead and wounded behind. Miles’ Division alone would count over 400 casualties that day.
Lee’s Command and the Price Farm
Lee remained above Jamestown Road for hours, moving back and forth to observe every threatened sector. Meanwhile, Humphreys used the Price House itself as headquarters for nearly half an hour before shifting about 100 yards west—still on the Price Farm, which had become the heart of the Union position.
All afternoon, the blue ranks regrouped across the Price Farm fields and orchard. Blood streaked the furrows where wounded men lay moaning. Bugles called orders over the rattle of musket fire.
The 4 p.m. Assault: Into the Ravine
The fighting wasn’t over. Around 4 p.m., Humphreys and Miles heard the distant roar of Sheridan’s cavalry striking along the Plank Road. Sensing an opening, they ordered another advance—this time to flank Lee’s left.
Union soldiers funneled into a massive ravine south of Jamestown Road, around Cumberland Road and near the church itself. Confederate skirmishers waited in the tangled undergrowth.
Federal troops slid and scrambled down muddy slopes, then clawed their way up the far side under merciless fire. Confederate bullets cut them down from above, many shot in the top of the head as they climbed.
This was the true killing ground of Cumberland Church. Smoke curled through the trees. Men screamed and fell. The famous 5th New Hampshire Infantry lost its cherished colors here, a humiliation they would never forget.
De Trobriand’s Division, advancing north and east of Bad Luck Creek, tried to push Grimes’ and Gordon’s men out of their rifle pits but were stymied by tough works and swollen, muddy water. Skirmishers sniped at each other across tangled underbrush.
Despite repeated charges, the Union line was thrown back along the ravine. Most of the 650 Federal casualties for the day occurred here, along with roughly 250 Confederate killed, wounded, or missing.
Twilight and the “Last Victory”
As dusk fell over the Price Farm and Cumberland Church, bugles blew the recall. Lee’s men, bloodied but unbroken, still held their lines. Lee himself rode through the darkening woods, conferring with Mahone at the church, visiting batteries and picket lines, his face gaunt but calm.
It was on the Price Farm north of Jamestown Road, that General Grant’s first letter asking for surrender would be handed to Humphreys late in the day. After dark, messengers carried it south across Confederate lines, eventually reaching Lee and Longstreet at Blanton’s Blacksmith Shop—farther south of the front, after the fighting had ended.
They called it “the Last Victory of the Army of Northern Virginia.” They had stopped the Union 2nd Corps for a single day.
But it was a poisoned victory. That half-day’s delay slowed Lee’s entire retreat, allowed Sheridan to loop around his flank, and made Appomattox inevitable.
Two days later, Lee’s army would lay down its arms.
And so Cumberland Church stands as the final pitched fight of Humphreys’ 2nd Corps in the Appomattox Campaign—a last stand written in blood, mud, and gunpowder smoke on the rolling fields of the Price Farm.
