By the evening of the 5th nearly all of Lee's army was at Amelia Court House. Lee had expected to find rations here for his army, which were ordered to be left there on the 2d. But the authorities at Richmond, anxious to get away, ordered the trains to go through to that place, where the rations were dumped out, the cars loaded with the heads of the various departments and their archives, and started south again, the occupants being in great dread of capture by the Yankees. The consequence was that Lee's army had to go hungry, as but little to eat was to be found in the country through which they were marching.
The 5th corps had reached Jetersville--a station on the South Side railroad--late in the afternoon of the 5th and began to entrench as they were in front and across the path of the rebel army, only five miles distant. Our corps joined the 5th corps about dark and the 6th corps a few hours later.
On the morning of the 6th the three corps advanced toward Amelia Court House, but it was soon found that Lee had during the night slipped around our left flank, or, in other words, passed to the north of us and continued his retreat. He was closely followed and there was some hot fighting during the day. Our brigade's first encounter was on the afternoon of the 6th at a place called Amelia Springs, about four miles from Jetersville. We drove the enemy and captured some prisoners. The road we followed on this day was strewn for miles with tents, camp equipage, baggage, documents, etc., which the enemy threw from their wagons to enable the half-starved mules to pull them through. Our brigade had frequent skirmishes with the enemy's rear guard until near dark, when we struck them at Sailor creek at Perkinson's mill, a few miles from where the creek empties into the Appomattox. Here, assisted by a portion of Miles' division, we succeeded in capturing several hundred prisoners, thirteen flags, and three guns, and a large part of the main trains of Lee's army, which were huddled together in a confused mass at the bridge crossing the creek. Our regiment and the 17th Maine dashed through the train and pursued the enemy across the creek, but both regiments were recalled after dark. In this engagement the regiment had none killed, and but seven men wounded. Among the wounded was Lieutenant-Colonel Perkins. Our division commander, General Mott, was wounded during the day's fighting.