Through early morning showers on April 6, 1865. Gen. Robert E. Lee's weary men and creaking wagons slogged west toward Farmville and expected rations. They passed through Deatonville, “a cluster of half-a-dozen brick farmhouses,” and marched down the road in front of you. Gen. John B. Gordon, following the wagon train with his Second Corps as the rear guard, later wrote of those endless days: “On and on, hour after hour, from hilltop to hilltop, the lines were alternately forming, fighting, and retreating, making one almost continuous shifting battle.”
As pursuing Federal forces closed in, Gen. William G. Lewis’s North Carolina brigade and Gen. Clement Evans’ Georgia brigade hastily erected “a formidable line of rifle pits and breastworks” to your left. When Union Gen. Byron R. Pierce’s brigade and Lt. Col. William Hobson’s 17th Maine Infantry struck Gordon’s line, a brief, vicious fight occurred. Maj. Charles Mattocks took command after Hobson was wounded in the thigh, and “with the colors, and as many of the regiment as could keep up, charged with yell, rushed over the breastworks, and captured about one hundred men, ten or twelve officers, and one battle flag (21st North Carolina Infantry).” The Confederate artillery and 300 of Gordon’s men managed to escape.
The Federals also captured part of the wagon train. A soldier described it as “loaded with furniture,(silver) plate, libraries, costly wardrobes—almost everything that can be moved. The wealthy of Richmond and Petersburg are fleeing, they know not wither.”