{"nrhp_refnum":"66000830","name":"Five Forks Battlefield","other_names":[],"category":"site","location":{"address":"12 mi. W of Petersburg on CR 627 at Church Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Petersburg","county":"Dinwiddie County","state":"VA","lat":37.138510868000054,"lon":-77.61801730354298,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1966-10-15","is_nhl":true,"nhl_designated_date":"1960-12-19","areas_of_significance":["Military"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Civil War battlefield of about 1,300 acres around the Five Forks crossroads, roughly five miles north of Dinwiddie in Dinwiddie County, Virginia. It covers the ground of the fighting on March 31 and April 1, 1865.","why_significant":"The Union victory at Five Forks on April 1, 1865 broke the Confederate Petersburg defenses. Sheridan's forces crushed Pickett's and Fitzhugh Lee's defenders, which led to the loss of the Southside Railroad, Lee's last supply line. Lee's surrender at Appomattox followed within weeks.","narrative":"Five Forks Battlefield covers about 1,300 acres of woods and farm fields around a rural crossroads in Dinwiddie County, Virginia. Here on April 1, 1865, Union forces under Philip Sheridan crushed a Confederate command led by George Pickett and Fitzhugh Lee. The Confederates had been sent to protect the Southside Railroad, Robert E. Lee's last supply line. While Pickett and his officers dined at a shad bake, Warren's infantry struck the Confederate right and Union cavalry scattered the screen linking Pickett with the main army. The collapse forced the abandonment of the Petersburg defenses and led to the surrender at Appomattox about two weeks later. Much of the land is still held by descendants of the Gilliam family, who owned it during the war. Their late 18th-century house, Burnt Quarter, was occupied by Union soldiers after the fighting. Little of the light Confederate earthworks survives, though the landscape remains largely open and agricultural.","period_of_significance":"4/1/1865","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Condition listed as good and unaltered on its original site. Most of the land is wooded tracts and cultivated fields, much as during the battle, and very little of the Confederate breastworks remains.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:51:57.273656-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/13/6790/41679013/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/66000830_NHL.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/66000830/67d03b5076-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/66000830/67d03b5076-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"published by Kurz &amp; Allison, Art Publishers, Chicago, U.S.A.","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Five_forks.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">published by Kurz &amp;amp; Allison, Art Publishers, Chicago, U.S.A.</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Five_forks.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41679013","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Forks_Battlefield","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5455943"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/dinwiddie-county/five-forks-battlefield-66000830/"}