As the combined Federal Armies of the Potomac and the James prepared to besiege Petersburg, Federal General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant looked to cut off the supply lines going into the city. This involved capturing the two railroad lines that were not yet in Federal hands:
- The Weldon Railroad, which ran south to Weldon, North Carolina, and connected to one of the Confederacy’s few remaining seaports at Wilmington
- The South Side Railroad, which ran west to Lynchburg in the bountiful Shenandoah Valley
At this time, the Federal siege line stretched from northeast of Petersburg to the Jerusalem Plank Road, southeast of town. Grant wanted to strike quickly, before the Federals settled into their trenches and the Confederates completely secured the railroads. Grant assigned two cavalry divisions under Brigadier-Generals James H. Wilson and August V. Kautz to ride beyond the Jerusalem Plank Road and raid both the Weldon to the west and the South Side farther northwest.
Grant also ordered a large Federal infantry force to extend the left flank beyond the Jerusalem Plank Road and support the cavalry raids. Major-General George G. Meade, commanding the Army of the Potomac, selected the Second and Sixth corps under Major-Generals David B. Birney and Horatio G. Wright for this assignment. President Abraham Lincoln, who had come from Washington to meet with Grant, visited with some troops of the Sixth Corps as they prepared.
Troops from Major-General Benjamin F. Butler’s Army of the James on the Bermuda Hundred peninsula northeast of Petersburg would be brought down via water to replace Birney and Wright on the siege line. The plan called for the Second and Sixth corps to cross the Jerusalem Plank Road and turn northwest toward the Weldon Railroad, while the cavalry troopers attacked the railroad farther south. The Federals moved out on June 21.
Early next morning, General Robert E. Lee, commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, visited Lieutenant-General A.P. Hill, commanding the corps defending the southern sector of the Petersburg line. There Lee learned that the Federals were trying to extend their lines toward the Weldon. Lee looked to attack preemptively, reasoning that “offensive movements are the foundation of a good defense.”
Brigadier-General William Mahone was summoned to find a point suitable for attack. As a civil engineer, Mahone had surveyed the area and “knew every inch of the ground hidden by the tangled chapparal.” He identified a spot from which the Confederates could launch a flank attack, and Lee approved. At 1 p.m., Lee directed cavalry under Major-General W.H.F. “Rooney” Lee to confront the Federal horsemen and Hill’s corps to confront the infantry.
Meanwhile, Federal cavalry cut the Weldon Railroad at Reams’s Station, about seven miles south of Petersburg. However, the difficult terrain had slowed the infantry’s advance, and the two corps became separated in the swamps and thickets south of the city. This separation “had become so great as to prevent any timely or intelligent cooperation.”
Hill deployed Major-General Cadmus M. Wilcox’s division to keep the Sixth Corps occupied on the right (south) while the divisions under Mahone and Major-General Bushrod R. Johnson attacked Birney’s Second Corps on the left. The Confederates furiously assaulted Birney’s exposed left flank and rear. Brigadier-General Francis C. Barlow’s Federal division was quickly “defeated almost without being engaged,” and Brigadier-General John Gibbon’s division fled for safety. A soldier wrote, “The attack was to the Union troops more than a surprise. It was an astonishment.”
This was the worst defeat ever sustained by the Second Corps. Some 1,700 Federals were taken prisoner, with some regiments surrendering en masse without even putting up a fight. This indicated that the unit had been fought out, having sustained some 20,000 casualties since the campaign began on May 5. Gibbon’s division had lost 72 percent of its men, with 40 regimental commanders killed or wounded. Gibbon wrote that “troops which at the commencement of the campaign were equal to almost any undertaking, became toward the end of it unfit for almost any.”
Wright’s corps did not sustain heavy damage, but Wright fell back to the Jerusalem Plank Road nonetheless to stabilize his lines. When Meade asked if he could launch a nighttime counterattack, Wright replied that he “could not foresee a good result” coming from it. Meade sent his staff officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Lyman, to give Wright a message: “Ask Gen. Wright, what I am to do tomorrow if I do not advance tonight?” Wright was given the note and said, “Ah, that I do not know!” Disappointed, Meade informed Grant at 9 p.m., “On the left and center the enemy have been pressed back considerably; on the right no advantage was gained.”
Birney and Wright renewed their advance the next day in hopes of regaining the ground they had lost. They soon learned that Hill’s Confederates had fallen back into their original defenses. Meade repeatedly ordered Wright to continue forward, but Wright vacillated, fearing an attack like the one that Birney had sustained the previous day. At 7:35 p.m., Meade notified Wright, “Your delay has been fatal.”
Wright and Birney reported to Meade’s headquarters that night, where Meade was “chafing, with an eye like a rattlesnake and a nose that seemed twice as sharp and long as usual!” According to Cyrus Comstock of Grant’s staff, “Troops did not fight nearly as well as when we started–best officers & men gone…” General Barlow complained that bad leadership “exposed us to be attacked,” but conceded that “It must be admitted that the troops did not meet the attack with vigor and courage and determination.”
Despite severely repulsing the Federals, A.P. Hill was not happy with the overall outcome. He reported to Lee at 9 p.m., “We did not accomplish anything; taking about 100 prisoners of the VI Corps. It was so hot, the undergrowth so thick, and the enemy retiring all the time, our men did not press forward. Indeed, could not sufficiently fast to get up with their main body.”
The Confederates suffered 572 casualties in this battle, while the humiliated Federals lost 2,962, including some 1,700 captured. The Weldon Railroad remained firmly in Confederate hands. However, the Federals did wreck some of the track, and their left was slightly extended across the Jerusalem Plank Road.
Lee launched an assault on the Federal right, northeast of Petersburg, on the 24th, but it failed to dislodge the Federals from their entrenchments. Grant visited Meade’s headquarters and directed him to refuse his left flank and keep the Second and Sixth corps “strongly fortified” west of the Jerusalem Plank Road. Thus ended just the first of many attempts that Grant would make to extend his left in the coming months.
Bibliography
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