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Living History Reenactment: Five Forks

  • 500 South Center Street Westminster, MD, 21157 (map)

Saturday 10 AM – 4 PM and Sunday 10 AM-3 PM

Battle reenactments will be Saturday and Sunday at 1:00P.M.

By the spring of 1865 the Confederacy was on the verge of collapse.  Gen. Lee barely had enough men and supplies to hold his lines at Petersburg.  Gen. Grant’s overwhelming force was inching closer and closer to outflanking Lee’s beleaguered position.  Gen. George Pickett was ordered to hold the critical crossroads at Five Forks, VA “at all costs.”  Pickett was also ordered to protect the Southside Railroad which was the only supply line left open to Lee’s troops in Petersburg.  If the Union Army Captured Five Forks and the crucial railroad, Lee’s position at Petersburg and the Confederacy’s capital at Richmond, would both have to be abandoned.  Gen. Pickett had approximately 10,600 troops under his command.  He was confronted with a force of 22,000 Union soldiers, more than twice his own number, under the command of Gen. Philip Sheridan. On April 1, 1865, in one of the last major engagements of the war in Virginia, these 32,000 men would fight at an obscure little crossroads named “Five Forks.”

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April 26

Living History Reenactment: Five Forks

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May 17

Graduate Commencement: McDaniel College