Pamplin Park • Breakthrough Trail • Tudor Hall • Fortifications • Markers • Timeline
Text from the marker
A Determination That Knew No Such Word as Fail
As the Vermonters pushed closer to the Confederate fortifications, they encountered the multiple rows of obstructions specifically designed to pin down an attacking force. Here, the Confederates extracted a terrible toll on the desperate Federals, who struggled to find their way through the tangled tree limbs while absorbing a deadly fire from the enemy line.
“With a cheer we went on getting through the abatis the best we could,” remembered Lieutenant Robert Pratt of the 5th Vermont. When 19-year-old Lieutenant Gardner C. Hawkins of the 3rd Vermont noticed that his men were wavering under the unceasing hail of lead and iron, he sprang forward and flashed his sword dramatically, urging the troops to maintain the momentum and continue the charge. “The effect upon the regiment if not upon other regiments of the brigade was very pointed and decisive,” testified one Vermonter. Shortly after rallying his men, Hawkins received a hideous wound to the face, the minie ball entering the right side of his nose, passing into his head, and exiting out through his left eye, carving a gouge down his left ear and cheek. Despite rage and plunged forward into the Confederate line with, according to Captain Merritt Barber, “a determination that knew no such word as fail.”
Caption to the photo on the left
Robert Pratt, a native of Brandon, Vermont, [who] enlisted as a private in Company H, 15th Vermont Infantry, in September 1861. He rose through the ranks to become 1st lieutenant in November 1864. Pratt succeeded to command of his company after his captain was wounded during the Breakthrough. In May 1865, he was promoted to captain of Company F, 5th Vermont.
Caption on the right to the main illustration
Major General Horatio G. Wright directed each brigade to provide men armed with axes to chop through the abatis. In some places the Confederate obstructions were relatively easy to breach. In others, the Southerners created as many as four separate lines of obstructions. The highest concentration of Union casualties during the Breakthrough occurred at these deadly barriers.
Location of the marker
The A Determination That Knew No Such Word as Fail wayside marker is on the Breakthrough trail at Pamplin Historical Park near Petersburg, Virginia. (37° 10.874′ N, 77° 28.293′ W)