Lee's Retreat: Lee's Last Camp
April 8-11, 1865
The trail to the clearing.
It was here in this clearing that Lee finally decided he had fought enough. Around a campfire in the middle of the group Lee and his generals argued out whether or not to give up and go home or to soldier on until nothing was left. From here Lee sent word to Grant to meet in Appomattox to work out terms. Lee allowed one final battle, a breakout attempt at Appomattox, but it was pretty half hearted: Lee was done. Who could blame him?
Lee's army, or what was left of it, had picked up supplies at Farmville. They had saved their supply wagons from Union attackers at Cumberlain Church so they could stop and think for a bit. Lee was trapped between two Union forces and he had lost enough men that he really couldn't tackle either force. The men were exausted and I believe in the middle stages of starvation. They had food, rough ground corn meal and ham, but by this point it would have been very difficult for them to digest it. Also, many of the men had dropped their weapons along the way as they had become to exausted to carry them. Commands had broken down in the fiasco at Sailor's Creek and it would have been very difficult to organize any form of concerted action, too much of the army was only there to see the conclusion and to be able to say they had stayed to the end.
This is a nice stop on the way to Appomattox.