This is one of two stamps with which the U.S. Postal Service concludes its 10-stamp series commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. Since 2011, souvenir sheets with two stamp designs have been issued for each year of the war (1861–1865). The other stamp on the 2015 souvenir sheet depicts Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9.

The war had begun four years earlier, but at this stage all the momentum was with the North. Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman had completed his March from Atlanta to Savannah in December, leaving a path of destruction across the state of Georgia. The North had gained control of several points of strategic value, including New Orleans and Vicksburg, giving it control of the Mississippi River, as well as the important port city of Mobile, Alabama.

Though he didn’t want to believe it, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee could read the writing on the wall. By March, after more than nine months in trench lines holding back the forces of Ulysses S. Grant at Petersburg, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was isolated and exhausted. Toward the end of the month, Lee alerted Confederate president Jefferson Davis that Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, might have to be abandoned.

Meanwhile, Grant made plans for a final assault. He ordered Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan to advance his cavalry toward Petersburg’s last remaining supply line, the South Side Railroad, by way of Five Forks. Sheridan, flush with pride from his victory over Confederate Gen. Jubal Early in the Shenandoah Valley, was more than willing to comply.

Lee knew that Grant’s objective was to starve him of fresh supplies. He ordered Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett to “hold Five Forks at all hazards”—not only to prevent an attack on a critical supply line, but also because he hoped to hold off Union troops long enough to break out of the Petersburg area and escape to North Carolina, where he could join forces with General Joseph E. Johnston.

Pickett failed to follow Lee’s instructions. With infantry support from the Fifth Corps under Gen. Gouverneur Warren, Sheridan moved on April 1 to dislodge Pickett’s troops from their position at Five Forks. When the fighting began, Pickett was attending a fish bake some distance away. After word of the attack reached him, he rushed to the scene of battle. But by the time he got there, Sheridan’s cavalry and Warren’s infantry had caused his line of defense to crumble. By nightfall, thousands of Confederate soldiers had been taken prisoner.

Both Richmond and Petersburg fell after the debacle at Five Forks. Jefferson Davis and his cabinet fled the Confederate capital for Danville, Virginia, while Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia made it only as far as Appomattox Court House before fighting their final battle of the war. Aptly, therefore, the Battle of Five Forks is often called “the Waterloo of the Confederacy,” after the battle that ended Napoleon’s brilliant career in 1815.