Federal General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant, traveling with Major-General George G. Meade’s Army of the Potomac, was running out of options. His Federals had not been able to get around the right flank of General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and were now out of room to maneuver any further. Grant had been unable to conquer the Shenandoah Valley to the west, and he had also been unable to capture Petersburg to the south. He therefore decided to embark on one of the riskiest plans of the war.
Grant planned to disengage Meade’s 100,000 men from Lee’s front and move them across the 2,000-foot-wide James River, a tidal waterway patrolled by Confederate ironclads, before Lee knew they were gone. Once across, Grant would link Meade’s army to Major-General Benjamin F. Butler’s Army of the James, and the combined force would move against both the Confederate capital of Richmond and the key railroad city of Petersburg.
Grant would keep a diversionary force opposing the Confederates at Cold Harbor while he began the shift of troops to the south. Grant had also launched two other diversions in the form of Major-General Philip Sheridan’s raid on Trevilian Station and Butler’s breakout at Bermuda Hundred. He hoped these diversions would keep Lee unaware that the main maneuver would be the James River crossing.
Lee had successfully anticipated most of Grant’s moves since this campaign began in early May. But being outnumbered, Lee had to stay on the defensive and let Grant make the first move. Lee informed President Jefferson Davis that the Federals were strengthening their entrenchments, which indicated that a part of Grant’s army was pulling back to advance to the James.
Meanwhile, Grant and Meade prepared to somehow make the massive Federal army disappear undetected while deep in enemy territory. If Lee found out what they were planning, he could attack the Federals as they crossed the James and destroy them in detail. Grant’s daring gamble began on the night of June 12:
- Brigadier-General James H. Wilson’s cavalry division led the movement by crossing the Chickahominy River 15 miles downstream from Cold Harbor.
- A pontoon bridge was laid for Major-General Gouverneur Warren’s Fifth Corps to follow Wilson’s troopers. Warren’s men crossed the Chickahominy and marched along White Oak Swamp.
- Major-General Ambrose E. Burnside’s Ninth Corps followed Warren but then continued south past Warren toward the James.
- The Second and Sixth corps under Major-Generals Winfield Scott Hancock and Horatio G. Wright held the trenches before following Burnside southward on two parallel roads.
- The troops of Major-General William F. “Baldy” Smith’s Eighteenth Corps marched to White House on the Pamunkey River, where they boarded transports that would take them to the Army of the James at Bermuda Hundred. Smith’s men had to be especially quiet while disengaging because of their proximity to the enemy line.
This massive movement away from the enemy made Grant uncharacteristically nervous. Colonel Horace Porter of his staff noted that Grant “was wrought up to an intensity of thought and action which he seldom displayed.” Grant transferred the Federal supply base to City Point, near Bermuda Hundred. Engineers selected an area on the James between Fort Powhatan and Windmill Point, about 10 miles downriver from City Point, to build a pontoon bridge for part of the army to cross.
The Federals moved flawlessly, leaving Lee completely unaware of Grant’s intentions for the first time. Confederate artillerist Robert Stiles wrote:
“When we waked on the morning of the 13th and found no enemy in our front we realized that a new element had entered into this move, the element of uncertainty. Thus far, during the campaign, whenever the enemy was missing, we knew where, that is, in what direction and upon what line, to look for him; he was certainly making for a point between us and Richmond. Not so now–even Marse Robert, who knew everything knowable, did not appear to know what his old enemy proposed to do or where he would be most likely to find him.”
Lee learned that the Federal trenches were empty on the morning of the 13th, after he had sent Lieutenant-General Jubal Early’s Second Corps west to the Shenandoah Valley. Major-General Wade Hampton’s Confederate cavalry had gone west to take on Major-General Philip Sheridan’s Federal horsemen; this left Lee without the cavalry needed to scout and probe to see where the enemy went. Initial reports only stated that Baldy Smith’s corps was at White House preparing to return to Butler’s army.
When Lee finally got word that Wilson and Warren were heading toward Richmond on the roads between the Chickahominy and the James, he thought that Grant was trying yet another flanking maneuver to the Confederate right. Lee shifted Lieutenant-General A.P. Hill’s Third Corps southward to block them. Lee also shifted Lieutenant-General Richard H. Anderson’s First Corps southward so the Confederate army covered both White Oak Swamp and Malvern Hill. Lee posted a division at Drewry’s Bluff on the James as well.
Warren’s Federals and the cavalry faced off against Hill and guarded all the Confederate approaches to the rest of the Federal army, which was marching behind Warren to the southeast. The Federals and Confederates skirmished as they built fortifications. Lee reported the action to Richmond that night:
“At daylight this morning it was discovered that the army of General Grant had left our front. Our skirmishers were advanced between one and two miles, but failing to discover the enemy were withdrawn, and the army was moved to conform to the route taken by him. He advanced a body of cavalry and some infantry from Long Bridge to Riddell’s Shop, which were driven back this evening nearly two miles, after some sharp skirmishing.”
By the end of the 13th, Warren fell back to Charles City Court House in preparation for crossing the James. Wilson’s cavalry stayed behind to block the Confederates from seeing the movement. Burnside and Wright crossed the Chickahominy, and the vanguard of Hancock’s reached Wilcox Landing on the James. Below the James, Butler boasted that there were only “about 2,000 men in Petersburg, mostly militia.”
Grant’s nervousness was gone. His chief of staff John Rawlins wrote, “From the commencement of this campaign General Grant has not deviated at all from his written plan, but has steadily pursued the line he then marked out.”
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