Critical Span
— Lee's Retreat —
From here you can see the 1914 steel railroad bridge that spans the Appomattox River above the brick piers of the antebellum High Bridge, which carried the South Side Railroad. The old wooden bridge and the wagon bridge, just to the east of it, were the scene of two desperate engagements in April 1865. The first occurred on April 6, when Confederate cavalry prevented a mixed detachment of Union infantry and cavalry from capturing and burning the bridges to block the Confederate retreat. The second took place the next day, when withdrawing Confederates in turn attempted to destroy the structures to restrict pursuing Federals to the south side of the Appomattox from crossing or using them. They succeeded in burning several spans of the railroad superstructure, one of which collapsed into the river, but failed to destroy the wagon bridge when Union soldiers swarmed over it despite Confederate small-arms fire and extinguished the flames with canteens and wet tent canvas.| HM Number | HMJZ4 |
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| Tags | |
| Placed By | West Virginia Civil War Trails |
| Marker Condition | No reports yet |
| Date Added | Saturday, October 11th, 2014 at 1:13am PDT -07:00 |
| UTM (WGS84 Datum) | 17S E 735922 N 4134142 |
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| Decimal Degrees | 37.32401667, -78.33738333 |
| Degrees and Decimal Minutes | N 37° 19.441', W 78° 20.243' |
| Degrees, Minutes and Seconds | 37° 19' 26.46" N, 78° 20' 14.58" W |
| Driving Directions | Google Maps |
| Area Code(s) | 434 |
| Closest Postal Address | At or near 17 High Bridge Trail, Farmville VA 23901, US |
| Alternative Maps | Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, MSR Maps, OpenCycleMap, MyTopo Maps, OpenStreetMap |
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