Cavalry Battle at High Bridge
Union Opportunity Lost
Just northeast of here, on the afternoon of April 6, 1865, a Union detachment tried and failed to burn High Bridge – where the South Side Railroad crossed the Appomattox River – and restrict the Confederate retreat to the south side of the river. Gen. Theodore Read, leading the mixed infantry and cavalry group, sent his troopers under Col. Francis Washburn on a scout to the bridge. There they drove off a small Confederate guard but turned back when they heard firing behind them.
Gens. Thomas L. Rosser’s and Thomas T. Munford’s cavalry had attacked the Federal infantry. Washburn’s command charged into the fray, and in the vicious hand-to-hand fighting Washburn fell mortally wounded while Read was killed outright. Some of the Union infantrymen escaped to High Bridge but surrendered when the Confederate cavalry overwhelmed them.
Marker is on Prince Edward Hwy (U.S. 460), on the right when traveling west.
Courtesy hmdb.org
