Qualla: Battle of Five Forks https://qualla.com/battle-of-five-forks en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/8/g/battle-of-five-forks-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Battle of Five Forks https://qualla.com/battle-of-five-forks Battle of Five Forks: Introduction https://qualla.com/battle-of-five-forks/ Photo credit Kurz & Allison, Public domain. George Pickett and Fitzhugh Lee were eating shad. It was April 1, 1865, and the two Confederate generals had accepted an invitation to a riverside fish bake at Thomas Rosser's camp, well behind the lines at Five Forks, Virginia. An acoustic shadow -- a quirk of terrain and atmosphere -- swallowed the sound of gunfire from the south. Couriers sent to find them could not. While they dined, Philip Sheridan launched the assault that would shatter the Confederate left flank, capture thousands of prisoners, and set in motion the fall of Petersburg, the evacuation of Richmond, and the end of the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln, handed captured battle flags that evening, held them and said: 'Here is something material -- something I can see, feel and understand. This means victory. This is victory.'

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Image: Kurz & Allison | Public domain

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/8/g/battle-of-five-forks-wp/dq8g-battle-of-five-forks-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Battle of Five Forks: The Crossroads That Mattered https://qualla.com/battle-of-five-forks/ Photo credit NPS, Public domain. Five Forks was a rural intersection in Dinwiddie County where five roads converged in the piney woods southwest of Petersburg. By the spring of 1865, it had become the hinge on which the entire Confederate position turned. Robert E. Lee's army held a thinning line of trenches str...

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Image: NPS | Public domain

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/8/g/battle-of-five-forks-wp/dq8g-battle-of-five-forks-the-crossroads-that-mattered.mp3 0:06 2 full Battle of Five Forks: Sheridan Unleashed https://qualla.com/battle-of-five-forks/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Philip Sheridan arrived at the front seething with aggressive energy. Ulysses Grant had given him clear instructions: turn the Confederate right, cut off the railroad, and force Lee into the open. Sheridan assembled a combined force of cavalry and Gouverneur Warren's V Corps -- a...

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]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/8/g/battle-of-five-forks-wp/dq8g-battle-of-five-forks-sheridan-unleashed.mp3 0:06 3 full Battle of Five Forks: Chaos and Courage at the Angle https://qualla.com/battle-of-five-forks/ Photo credit Public domain. Romeyn Ayres's division, the leftmost of Warren's three, found the fight first. His men stumbled into accurate fire from Matt Ransom's brigade defending the angled return in the Confederate line and briefly faltered. Sheridan rode directly along the wavering battle line, shouting...

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]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/8/g/battle-of-five-forks-wp/dq8g-battle-of-five-forks-chaos-and-courage-at-the-angle.mp3 0:06 4 full Battle of Five Forks: A General's Reward https://qualla.com/battle-of-five-forks/ Photo credit Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. Pickett, rushing back from the shad bake, arrived to find his line collapsing from multiple directions. He pulled brigades from one sector to shore up another, but each new defensive stand dissolved under the weight of converging Union forces. Custer swung his mounted brigades ar...

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Image: Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/8/g/battle-of-five-forks-wp/dq8g-battle-of-five-forks-a-generals-reward.mp3 0:06 5 full Battle of Five Forks: The Domino Falls https://qualla.com/battle-of-five-forks/ Photo credit Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. Colonel Horace Porter galloped to Grant's headquarters around 7:30 that evening with news that over 5,000 prisoners had been taken. Grant, calm as always, issued the order he had been waiting months to give: a general assault along the entire Petersburg line at dawn. The next mor...

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Image: Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/8/g/battle-of-five-forks-wp/dq8g-battle-of-five-forks-the-domino-falls.mp3 0:06 6 full