The roads west from Petersburg were choked with wagons, guns, and weary men in gray. General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was running for its life, trying to outrace Ulysses S. Grant’s blue columns that snapped at its heels.
On April 6th, 1865, the Confederate army streamed south of the Appomattox River toward Farmville, hungry, ragged, and desperate for the promised rations there. But one of their lifelines west lay across a single vital crossing: High Bridge.
It wasn’t just any bridge. Built in 1854, High Bridge was a marvel of engineering—2,400 feet long and towering 125 feet above the Appomattox. Beside it ran a smaller, sturdier wagon bridge, essential for supply trains and artillery. Both had to be held at all costs if Lee’s army was to escape.
The Federal Plan
Meanwhile, Union commanders were equally aware of the bridges’ importance. At Burkeville Junction, Major General Edward Ord sat over maps with lantern-light dancing on the tent walls.
“If we can burn High Bridge, we’ll trap them,” he told his staff.
He gave the job to Colonel Francis Washburn, who gathered 900 men from the 54th Pennsylvania, the 123rd Ohio, and the 4th Massachusetts Cavalry. Their orders were stark and clear: Torch the bridges. Stop Lee cold.
Clash at the Bridges
The column set out before dawn. Drizzling rain slicked their uniforms. By morning they reached the High Bridge approaches, finding the 3rd Virginia Reserves scattered among muddy rifle pits.
Union troopers fanned out, pushing the thin Confederate line back with carbine fire.
But from the hills behind them thundered hoofbeats.
Lieutenant General James Longstreet knew the importance of High Bridge too. After receiving reports about Yankees in his rear, he dispatched Major General Thomas Rosser, Colonel Thomas Munford, and over 1,500 Confederate cavalry from the vicinity of Rice’s Depot to protect the crossings.
Munford’s Virginia troopers smashed into the Federal center, dismounted, yelling the rebel yell. At the same moment, Rosser’s cavalry swept around the flank, mounted, catching the bluecoats in a murderous vice. Washburn and his Massachusetts troopers, just 80 strong, charged straight into the Confederate lines, sabers drawn and carbines at the ready.
The fighting became a savage brawl. Rifles cracked along the line. Pistols fired at arm’s length. Men wrestled in the mud, bayonets, sabers, and knives flashing.
“Give it to ‘em, boys!” Munford roared.
Federal and Confederate soldiers fell by the score, shot, slashed, or pulled from their horses. Brigadier General Read himself was killed in the melee. Colonel Francis Washburn was mortally wounded. Confederate General James Dearing of the famous Virginia Laurel Brigade was also mortally wounded, in addition to other high ranking Confederate officers falling, never to rise no more. In the end, over 200 men lay dead and wounded, and nearly 780 Union soldiers were rounded up at rifle, saber, and pistol point and marched off as prisoners.
The Confederates had held the crossings.
A Human Moment Among the Dead
The battlefield was chaos—shattered rifles, wounded men crying out, smoldering fires, and muddy pools of blood.
Among the Confederate victors was Private Heartwell Kincaid Adams of the 3rd Virginia Cavalry. Famished after days of half rations, he stooped over a dead Federal soldier’s haversack. Inside he found stale crackers—and an ambrotype of a little girl.
As he guarded the prisoners, a captured Union soldier glanced over, recognized the image, and went pale.
“That’s...that’s my niece,” the prisoner whispered, voice breaking.
He offered two dollars to share the food. Heartwell shared it. But neither spoke further of the ambrotype. The Union prisoner learned that his brother—likely the girl’s father—had been killed that day.
The little girl in the picture would never see her father again. Whether she was from Pennsylvania, Ohio, or Massachusetts was lost to history. But Heartwell carried the memory of that moment forever.
Burning the Bridges
As dusk fell on April 6th, the Confederate columns crossed north over High Bridge. Wagon wheels groaned. Artillery rumbled. Lee’s men slipped away, the bridges still standing.
But they knew they couldn’t leave them for Grant. Overnight, Major General William Mahone’s troops worked by flickering torchlight to burn the spans. Flames crackled up into the night sky.
Yet the Union army was relentless. At dawn on April 7th, Major General Andrew Humphreys’ 2nd Corps surged forward. Bluecoats fought through skirmishers, doused fires where they could. Four spans of the railroad bridge burned and collapsed, but the crucial wagon bridge fell into Federal hands, intact.
Aftermath and Loss
The skirmishes at High Bridge were brief but costly. The Union lost around 100 killed or wounded, plus the 780 men captured. Confederate casualties were fewer than 100 killed or wounded—but the strategic cost was worse than the tally of dead.
Lee had hoped to resupply at Farmville. Instead, pursued closely by blue columns across the surviving bridge, his men were forced to abandon wagons and rations almost as soon as they reached them.
And in the drizzle of April 7th, as the battered Confederate army limped west, tragedy struck the Union ranks too. Near Farmville, Brigadier General Thomas Smyth, an Irish immigrant who had fought from Antietam to Petersburg, was shot by a North Carolina sharpshooter.
Smyth lingered for a day before dying—the last Federal general killed in battle during the Civil War.
Rain fell softly over the Appomattox River. The bridges smoldered. And both armies trudged on toward the final act at Appomattox Court House.
