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Battle of Dinwiddie Court House 1865

Battle of Dinwiddie Court House: Petersburg Mar29-31
Image: Drawn in Adobe Illustrator CS5 by Hal Jespersen. Graphic source file is available at http://www.posix.com/CWmaps/, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.

Key facts

Date31 March 1865Wikidata
Year1865Wikidata P585 (point in time)
Era19th century (1800–1913)derived from year
LocationUnited StatesNatural Earth (modern borders)
ContinentNorth AmericaNatural Earth
War / conflictAmerican Civil WarWikidata P361
Coordinates37.0772, -77.5871Wikidata P625

About the battle

The Battle of Dinwiddie Court House was fought on March 31, 1865, during the American Civil War at the end of the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign and in the beginning stage of the Appomattox Campaign. Along with the Battle of White Oak Road which was fought simultaneously on March 31, the battle involved the last offensive action by General Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia attempting to stop the progress of Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant's Union Army (Army of the Potomac, Army of the Shenandoah and Army of the James). Grant's forces were moving to cut the remaining Confederate supply lines and to force the Confederates to extend their defensive lines at Petersburg, Virginia and Richmond, Virginia to the breaking point, if not to force them into a decisive open field battle.

On March 29, 1865, a large Union cavalry force of between approximately 9,000 and 12,000 troopers moved toward Dinwiddie Court House, Virginia about 4 miles (6.4 km) west of the end of the Confederate lines and about 5 miles (8.0 km) south of the important road junction at Five Forks, Virginia.

Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Dinwiddie Court House (revision 1370438882), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.

Location

37.0772, -77.5871 · United States

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Nearby battles

Other battles of the American Civil War

All 498 battles of the American Civil War →

Browse more: battles in United States · North America · 19th century battles

Further reading