Five Forks • Tour the Battlefield • The Armies • Battle Maps
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Visitor Center • Stop 1 • Stop 2 • Stop 3 • Stop 4 • Stop 5
The ‘Digging In’ wayside marker is at the Five Forks intersection. (37°08’24.1″N 77°36’39.0″W; map) It is next to the ‘Death of Pegram’ wayside marker
From the marker:
Digging In
“Hold Five Forks at all hazards…”
General Robert E. Lee to Maj. General George Pickett
April 1, 1865
Just before noon on April 1, 1865, 10,000 Confederates under Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett arrived here at Five Forks. They immediately started digging and by mid-afternoon had constructed a rough earthwork that extended along the White Oak Road for nearly two miles. You are standing at the center of that Confederate line.
Weary, wet, and hungry, the Confederates waited – aware that if they yielded, nothing would stand between the Federals and the South Side Railroad, the last supply line into Petersburg. Until 4 p.m. the Confederates waited quietly behind the works. Then they saw them: men in blue, advancing astride the Dinwiddie Road. The rattle of musketry soon signaled the opening of the Battle of Five Forks.
Most of the Confederate works built on April 1 have been obliterated. The best and most important surviving section is at the “Angle,” on the extreme left of the line – about 3/4 mile to your left.