The Fourth Corps was a military unit formed in October 1864 within the

Army of Northern Virginia The Army of Northern Virginia was the primary military force of the Confederate States of America in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. It was also the primary command structure of the Department of Northern Virginia. It was most oft ...

of the

Confederate Army The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighti ...

.Dupuy, p. 40. It fought for the

Confederate States of America The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confeder ...

during the late stages of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

. The corps was commanded by Richard H. Anderson during its short life and was combined with the Second Corps shortly before Lee's surrender on April 9, 1865.

1864

With the recovery of Lt. General

James Longstreet James Longstreet (January 8, 1821January 2, 1904) was one of the foremost General officers in the Confederate States Army, Confederate generals of the American Civil War and the principal subordinate to General Robert E. Lee, who called him his ...

from injury, which allowed him to resume leading the First Corps, a new Fourth Corps was created on October 19, 1864.Eicher, p. 889. Commanded by temporary Lt. General Anderson, it was made up of units that before had served around Richmond and Petersburg as part of General Beauregard's Department of North Carolina and Southern Virginia.

1865

The Fourth Corps spent the winter of 1864/5 encamped around Petersburg as part of the Army of Northern Virginia. In April, the Army of the Potomac, under General Ulysses Grant, broke through the defenses and successfully concluded the siege of Petersburg, initiating the start of the Appomattox Campaign. The Fourth Corps retreated with the rest of General Lee's Army but was largely destroyed in the

Battle of Sailor's Creek The Battle of Sailor's Creek was fought on April 6, 1865, near Farmville, Virginia, as part of the Appomattox Campaign, near the end of the American Civil War. It was the last major engagement between the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, ...

, during which several key officers were captured. The survivors were surrendered three days later, on 9 April 1865, at Appomattox Courthouse.

References

* Dupuy, Trevor N., Johnson, Curt, and Bongard, David L., ''

Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography ''The Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography'' () was written by Trevor N. Dupuy, Curt Johnson and David Bongard, and was issued in 1992 by HarperCollins Publishers. It contains more than three thousand short biographies of military figures f ...

'', Castle Books, 1992, 1st Ed.,
. * Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., ''Civil War High Commands'', Stanford University Press, 2001, . * Foote, Shelby, '' The Civil War: A Narrative: Vol. III Red River to Appomattox'', Vintage Books, 1986, .

1864

1865

References

Notes

See also