Battle of Namozine Church

Battle Of Namozine Church

The Battle of Namozine Church, Virginia was a minor engagement that occurred on April 3, 1865 during the Appomattox Campaign of the American Civil War. The battle was the first engagement between units of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia under the command of General Robert E. Lee after that army's evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia on April 2, 1865 and units of the Union Army of the Potomac under the command of Maj. Gen. George G. Meade and the overall direction of Union General-in-Chief Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. The pursuit of Lee's army was led by the Union Army Cavalry Corps and associated infantry corps under Cavalry Corps commander, Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan. The forces immediately engaged in the battle were brigades of the cavalry division of Union Brig. Gen. George Armstrong Custer, especially the brigade of Colonel William Wells, and the Confederate rear guard cavalry brigades of Brig. Gen. William P. Roberts and Brig. Gen. Rufus Barringer.

The engagement signaled the beginning of the Union Army's relentless pursuit of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia after the fall of Petersburg and Richmond, which led to the near disintegration of Lee's forces within 6 days and the Confederate army's surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia on April 9, 1865. Captain Tom Custer, the general's brother, won the first of two Congressional Medals of Honor which he won within four days at this battle.