There's construction on Crater Road and this detour will be necessary to negotiate it on my December 26 tour of the three Petersburg battlefields of the Crater (July 30, 1864), Jerusalem Plank Road (June 21, 1864) and Globe Tavern (August 18-21, 1864). George Fickett has volunteered to lead us through this maze.
Map courtesy of George Fickett
On December 26, 2022, I'll lead a free tour of three Petersburg battlefields. The tour will start from the parking lot outside the main visitor center at 10:00 a.m. that day. The park will be open. Maps should be available at the visitor center. My hat will identify me.
John Horn
We'll go first to the Crater, the nearest battlefield. I'll focus on the role in this bloody fight (July 30, 1864) of the 12th Virginia Infantry, the Petersburg Regiment. I depicted that role in The Petersburg Regiment in the Civil War: A History of the 12th Virginia Infantry from John Brown's Hanging to Appomattox, 1859-1865 (Savas Beatie, 2019), which won the 2019 Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award for Unit History. Both sides called for no quarter in that battle.
Map by Hampton Newsome
Next, we'll drive down Crater Road to Flank Road, turn right and follow Birdsong Road to its junction with the old Johnson Road, where Brig. Gen. Rufus Clay "Aunt Nancy" Barringer and his North Carolina Brigade of Cavalry ambushed and defeated Brig. Gen. Francis Channing Barlow's Red Club Division of II Corps, one of the toughest divisions in the United States Army on June 21, 1864, the first day of the battle of Jerusalem Plank Road. I've written of that fight in my virtually completed Grant Besieges Lee at Petersburg: The Battle of Jerusalem Plank Road and the Wilson-Kautz Raid, June 20-July 1, 1864. The Petersburg Regiment became involved in the battle on June 22 and June 23 as the Federal attempt to invest Petersburg from Jerusalem Plank Road to the Appomattox River above the City went from one disaster to another.
Map of Birney's Advance, June 21, 1864, by Hal Jespersen
The battle of Globe Tavern took place in the same area August 18-21, 1864. We'll discuss that battle, which I covered in The Siege of Petersburg: The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864 (Savas Beatie, 2015) (sesquicentennial edition originally published as The Destruction of the Weldon Railroad (H. E. Howard, Inc., 1991). The focus will be on the Petersburg Regiment, which on August 19 narrowly avoided on the calamity which befell Hagood's brigade on August 21.
Afterward we'll head back to the visitor center where anyone who wants to buy a book should be able to do so. I'll hang around to inscribe books and answer questions before I return to Richmond for dinner with relatives.
Would anyone be interested in a free tour of the Petersburg battlefields on the morning of December 26, 2022? I'll conduct such a tour if there's sufficient interest.
I've written a few books on the siege and I plan to be in Richmond then.
My books include The Petersburg Campaign (1993); The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864 (2015); and The Petersburg Regiment (2019). The last won the 2019 Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award for Unit History.
The working title of my nearly finished current project is Grant's Siege of Lee at Petersburg: The Battle of Jerusalem Plank Road and the Wilson-Kautz Raid.
My idea is to begin in the main vistor center parking lot of Petersburg National Battlefield Park, proceed to the Crater battlefield (July 30, 1864), then down Crater Road to Birdsong Road and take up the route of Barlow's division to its ambush at the hands of Barringer's cavalry brigade on the Jerusalem Plank Road battlefield (June 21-24, 1864) , and wind up on the Globe Tavern battlefield (August 18-21, 1864 at the monument to Hagood's South Carolina Brigade at Stop One of the Petersburg National Battlefield Western Front Auto Tour on the west side of Halifax Road south of Flank Road. We would then return to the visitor center so nobody gets lost and I could inscribe any book anyone wants to purchase there.
Those interested in the proposed tour should contact me by email (johnedwardhorn@gmail.com), facebook, or my blog at petersburgcampaign.blogspot.com.
John Horn
On December 3, 1863, Gen. Robert E. Lee recommended that President Jefferson F. Davis appoint Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard commander of the Army of Tennessee. OR 29, 2:859. Lieutenant General James Longstreet, Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk, former Army of Tennessee chief of staff Brig. Gen. William W. Mackall and Beauregard himself urged, and the general public demanded, however, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's appointment. "To these appeals Davis, much against his inclination, yielded and appointed Johnston to the command of the army." Elsworth Eliot, Jr., West Point in the Confederacy, 184. (Davis's inclination seems to have been General Lee, who appears to have talked the president out of it. OR 29, 2:861.) On December 8, the Richmond Whig advocated the appointment of either Beauregard or Johnston. When Johnston was appointed, Beauregard congratulated him. Eliot, West Point in the Confederacy, 184.
Jefferson F. Davis
Library of Congress
Choosing a commander of the Army of Tennessee was difficult enough for Davis once Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee declined to take command in late 1863. Replacing Johnston once his unacceptable performance became intolerable during the 1864 Atlanta Campaign may well have been just as difficult.
Richard M. McMurry goes into this more thoroughly in Atlanta 1864 than Albert E. Castel in Decision in the West. Dissatisfaction with Johnston's performance began to voice itself as early as May. On June 24, Johnston's friend Senator Louis Wigfall visited Johnston and informed him that Davis was considering replacing him with Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood.
By this time, Beauregard had demonstrated his superiority to Johnston by defeating Butler at Second Drewry's Bluff (May 16) and Grant at Second Petersburg (June 15-18). One might naturally ask why Davis was not considering Beauregard as well as Hood. When Johnston was removed in July 1864, Beauregard hoped to take command of the Army of Tennessee. T. Harry Williams, P. G. T. Beauregard, Napoleon in Gray, 239.
There are at least two reasons why Davis did not consider Beauregard as a replacement for Johnston.
First, Davis appears to have been dissatisfied with Beaurgard's performance in May and June if sniping at the Louisianian by Davis' military advisor Gen. Braxton Bragg was any indication. Bragg complained about Beauregard's abandonment of the Howlett Line opposite Bermuda Hundred in order to concentrate on the defense of Petersburg.
Second, Hood was with the Army of Tennessee while Beauregard was hundreds of miles and several days away; Hood could step into Johnston's shoes much more easily than the Louisianian. Davis did not remove Johnston until July 17. At that point, only Hardee and Hood were under consideration to replace Johnston. The Federals were at the gates of Atlanta. Beauregard could not have arrived in time to take command before action had to be taken against them. Lee thought the pressing circumstances required the appoitment of someone with the Army of Tennessee such as Hood or Hardee and Lee seems to have leaned toward Hardee. Lee did not mention Beauregard in recommending a replacement for Johnston. Castel, Decision in the West, 353.
Beauregard and his partisans were disappointed when command of the Army of Tennessee was given to Hood. It's hard to imagine that Beauregard or Lee would not have defended Atlanta more effectively than Hood. Beauregard and Lee reacted immediately to movements against their flanks (June 21-23, August 18-21). Hood neglected to block the Federals till they were within a mile of his last railroad, forcing him to attack them in entrenchments.
The student of the siege of Petersburg does not need to know as much about 1864's Atlanta Campaign as about that year's Shenandoah Campaign; the latter was far more intimately related to the siege. As far as the Atlanta Campaign is concerned, it is necessary to know that as Grant's second offensive collapsed near June's end, the general-in-chief determined to restricct Federal efforts to Georgia and Virginia and informed Sherman that he needed no longer worry about the Army of Tennessee detaching forces to Lee. By August, with Grant's army stalled in front of Richmond and Sherman's progressing toward Atlanta's last railroad, the general-in-chief worried lest he be ordered to raise the siege of Petersburg in order to deal with matters elsewhere. OR 40, 2:193-194. Grant thought that lifting the siege would permit the foe to concentrate against and defeat Sherman. Ibid. As long as the general-in-chief kept the pressure on Lee in Virginia, any Confederate reinforcement of the Army of Tennessee would have to come from elsewhere.
Still, the student of the siege of Petersburg can contribute more than that to the understanding of 1864's Atlanta Campaign. The contribution will be to the big picture, rather than to the minute details. The first issue on which the student of the Petersburg siege can shed light is on the choice of a commander of the Army of Tennessee before beginning of the campaign of 1864.
Currently, the two major books on the Atlanta Campaign are Albert Castel's Decision in the West: The Atlanta Campaign of 1864 and Richard M. McMurry's Atlanta 1864: Last Chance for the Confederacy.
Castel says that after Gen. Braxton Bragg resigned and senior corps commander Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee declined command, Davis was left with only three choices for a commander of the Army of Tennessee: Gen. Robert E. Lee, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston (upper left, courtesy of National Archives), and Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard (right, courtesy of National Archives). No one could replace Lee as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, Castel explains that appointment of Beauregard would admit that his relief as commander of the Army of Tennessee in 1862 had been a mistake, and that left Johnston. Davis detested both Beauregard and Johnston, and they detested Davis. Castel, Decision in the West, 28-29. Castel's explanation of Johnston's appointment is probably right.
McMurry considers insurmountable the problems Davis would have faced selecting a commander of a subordinate rank rather than a full general. Like Castel, McMurry believes the practical choice boiled down to Beauregard or Johnston, McMurry attempts to justify Davis's choice of Johnston because of Johnston's seniority, his extensive experience in command of a large army, his personal bravery, his modest administrative ability, and his popularity. McMurry, Atlanta 1864, 6-9. Johnston was indeed senior to Beauregard, but the latter also had commanded a large army (after Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston's death), was personally brave, had administrative ability, and was popular.
Siege of Jackson, Mississippi, July 9-17, 1863
The Official Atlas of the Civil War, Plate XLIV, 2
Furthermore, since Johnston's initial victory at First Manassas/First Bull Run, where Beauregard assisted him, Johnston had succeeded neither on offense or on defense. Beauregard and Johnston had both launched unsuccessful attacks, Beauregard at Shiloh (assisting Albert Sidney Johnston) and Joe Johnston at Fair Oaks/Seven Pines. Johnston had failed to defend Jackson and Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Beauregard had failed to defend Corinth, Mississippi, but Beauregard had successfully defended Charleston, South Carolina. Maybe President Davis thought that the results at Charleston would have been the same if Joe Johnston and Beauregard had changed places, but the successful defense of Charleston against a powerful Federal fleet and substantial land forces might have at least suggested what the campaign of 1864 would confirm: Beauregard was a better general than Johnston, much better.
In May 1864, while Joe Johnston was revealing his incompetence by failing to defend Snake Creek Gap against Sherman, Beauregard was successfully attacking Butler at Second Drewry's Bluff (May 16) and driving him back into Bermuda Hundred. In June 1864, while Johnston continued to retreat before Sherman, Beauregard brilliantly defended Petersburg against Grant's first thrust toward the Cockade City (June 15-18). Beauregard's record in May and June 1864 was not perfect--his plan for a counteroffensive on June 24 was faulty--but his record was far better than Joe Johnston's.
Does all this mean that Davis made the wrong decision choosing Johnston instead of Beauregard to command the Army of Tennessee at the beginning of the 1864 campaign?
Only if a 1-1 defense record since First Manassas/First Bull Run outweighed a 0-2 defense record, and then, because of Beauregard's previous dismissal from command of the Army of Tennessee, any error was hardly glaring.
More interestingly, even if selection of Beauregard had benefitted the Army of Tennessee, any such benefit would likely have come at the expense of Petersburg and Richmond.
With Beauregard in charge of the Army of Tennessee, Johnston would have had to take Beauregard's place in the east. Bragg could not trade places with Johnston to take Beauregard's place in the east because Johnston serving as Davis's personal advisor is unthinkable; the two men loathed one another. General Samuel Cooper, the ranking Confederate general, was strictly an administrator.
Does anyone imagine Johnston successfully attacking Butler and driving him away from Richmond and back into Bermuda Hundred? Does anyone imagine Johnston successfully defending Petersburg against Grant? Selection of Beauregard to command the Army of Tennessee at the beginning of the 1864 campaign might well have cost the Confederacy Richmond as early as May.
Davis needed three good generals for the campaign of 1864, but he had only two at that rank.
At 7 p.m. on Tuesday, November 15, 2022, at Lincoln-Davis Civil War Round Table at Country House Restaurant in Alsip, Illinois, I'll present a talk on June 21, 1864, the critical opening day of the battle of Jerusalem Plank Road. On June 21, 1864, Grant's army group began its attempt to invest Lee's army group in Petersburg from the Appomattox River below the city to the Appomattox above. A single brigade of Confederate cavalry successfully stopped one of the hardest-fighting divisions in the Union army from reaching the Weldon Railroad, which cost the Federals the element of surprise and led to a series of debacles over the following eight days that cost the Northerners about 5,000 killed, wounded and captured--mostly captured. .
Federal Advance, June 21, 1864
Because five of the six principal officers (four Federal, two Confederate) were connected with Harvard University, I've facetiously called this day "The Harvard Reunion" and I'll explain why at the meeting on November 15. The winner of the fight graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was nicknamed "Aunt Nancy."
The presentation will be from chapter two of the nine chapters of my next book, Lee Besieged: Grant's Second Offensive at Petersburg, Jerusalem Plank Road and the Wilson-Kautz Raid, June 20-July 1, 1864.
This book (Jeffrey Wert's From Winchester to Cedar Creek) covers the period after the burning of Chambersburg. It begins with the continuing shift of Federal forces from Petersburg to the Shenandoah Valley and Grant's reorganization of the four United States departments there into one. Like Hunter had succeeded only too well in drawing Early's corps away from the Army of Northern Virginia to save Lynchburg, so Early had succeeded only too well in drawing two infantry and one cavalry corps from Grant's army group at Petersburg to save Washington.
Sheridan's Ride
Library of Congress
Curiously, the book does not pay as much attention to the shift of Confederate forces from Petersburg to Early in order to protect him from the Northern buildup opposite him. This, in an abstract sense, was the last time forces from Virginia could have been sent to Georgia. Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry division was unsuited to rail transportation, but Kershaw's infantry division might have gone. Sending it would have been a bad idea because though Lee could spare it, Early needed it. Furthermore, the situation in Virginia was too active in 1864--unline the inactive posture of both armies there in the fall of 1863, when Kershaw's division had been part of the force sent to Georgia resulting in Chickamauga. As I've written before, any Southern reinforcements for Georgia at this point had to come from elsewhere than Virginia.
But to go a little farther down that rabbit hole, what difference would Kershaw's 3,500 men have made in Georgia in August-September 1864? Who knows how they would have been employed when on August 25, 1864, as the Federals began their final offensive against Atlanta, a brigade of infantry (Baker's) was dispatched to Mobile at the request of the Confederate commander there? OR 38, 5:987; Ibid., 39, 2:796, 854n. The high command appears to have acquiesced in this. OR 39, 5:986. Could anyone rule out the possibility that the Southern leaders might have sent Kershaw's division to Mobile? They seem to have been hellbent in proving wrong Frederick the Great's reported declaration that he who defends everything defends nothing. (I'm going to get back to this bigtime when I write about Castel's and McMurry's books on the Atlanta Campaign, which must also be understood by the student of the Petersburg siege.)
***
To return to the Shenandoah. Wert's account of the battle of Opequon Creek/Third Winchester alone is worth the price of his book. The battle was a very near run thing. Both sides made mistakes. Had Early not released Kershaw's division to return to Lee shortly before the battle, the result would probably have been different. Early released Kershaw's division because of Lee's underestimate of the Federal forces facing Early. Underrating his enemy, Early divided his forces. Sheridan sent a significant part of his force down a gorge that Ramseur neglected to block. The outnumbered Confederates put up great resistance before being routed by the overwhelming Federal numbers.
Fisher's Hill followed three days later, another rout described in detail. Though Early retreated far up the Valley, Sheridan did not penetrate as far as Grant would have liked--at least to Gordonsville and Charlottesville. Though a magnetic battlefield commander, Little Phil was a far more cautious strategist than the general-in-chief.
Wert's book also made me aware of my ignorance of the details of the battle of Cedar Creek, one of the Civil War's most dramatic. Patchan seemed to think that Early might have withdrawn from the field with a semblance of victory, but I don't think that idea finds support in the picture Wert paints of a Confederate army very disorganized by the morning's success.
***
In any event, reading Patchan's and Wert's books impresses on one how closely the Confederates came to victory in the Shenandoah, particulary at Opequon Creek/Third Winchester. Livermore's figures indicate what stiff fights the Southerners put up before Northern numbers overwhelmed them. (Yanks outnumberd Rebs about three to one.) At Opequon Creek, leaving prisoners aside, the 1,000 Federals were hitting 56 Confederates while 1,000 of the latter were hitting 273 of the former. At Cedar Creek, 1,000 Yanks were hitting 60 Rebels while 1,000 of the latter were htting 221 of the former. A victory in the Valley after Atlanta's capture might well have swung some Northern votes toward Little Mac. Probably not enough to change the November election, but who knows? One thing that can always be said of voters is, how quickly they forget!
Lt. Gen. Jubal Anderson Early
Library of Congress
The Shenandoah and Petersburg Campaigns are very, very closely related. Scott C. Patchen's Shenandoah Summer filled me in on the interval in the Shenandoah Campaign between Early's attack on Washington and his second thrust beyond the Potomac, which precipitated the crisis of the war. This was the period in the Shenandoah Campaign about which I knew the least.
The book is more detailed than Vandiver's Jubal's Raid. Patchan begins with a curious statement. He holds that the deployment of Early's forces to the Shenandoah Valley assured that the Confederates could not afford to reinforce the Army of Tennessee.
I had entertained similar thoughts for a while, but Early was sent to the Shenandoah after the Army of Tennessee had given up the Dalton positionin Georgia and before it reached the Kennesaw Mountain line. Early was sent to the Valley in mid-June 1864 because Hunter threatened the important supply center of Lynchburg. Everyone knows that the Shenandoah pointed toward the North's vitals--Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia. Most forget that while it led away from Richmond, it pointed at Lynchburg, without which Richmond may well have fallen.
If the Army of Tennessee in June required more reinforcements than it had received in May, they had to come from somewhere other than Virginia. This was not the autumn of 1863, when the Virginia armies of both sides were relatively inactive at the time of Chattanooga's fall. It was the late spring of 1864, when both sides had all their Virginia forces engaged.
Patchan points out that the Federals could more easily lose than win the war in the Shenandoah. Early's victory at the second battle of Kernstown on July 24, 1864--the last major Southern victory in the Valley--distracted from Sherman's late July victories around Atlanta. It also opened the way for his men to cross the Potomac for the last time and precipitate the war's crisis by burning Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
The book observes that after Breckenridge's victory at New Market on May 15, Lee encouraged him to pursue the defeated Unionists into Maryland. Breckenridge chose the other option offered by Lee, joining the Army of Northern Virginia near Cold Harbor, leaving a May thrust northward an intriguing might-have-been, though Breckenridge's forces were not big enought to create an alarm as loud as Early's.
Patchan calls attention to Confederate defeats as well as victories. Major General Stephen Dodson Ramseur comes off particularly poorly for his defeat at Rutherford's Farm on June 20, which he would have avoided had he simply followed Early's orders to remain on the defensive.
The Rebel victory at second Kernstown and the burning of Chambersburg stole the lustre of Sherman's victories in Georgia and brought on the crisis of the war. Lincoln passed this test, deciding with Grant to reorganize the four Union departments sharing the Shenandoah and ultimately put Sheridan in charge there. They rose to the occasion of Early's success much as Lee had earlier risen to the occasion of Hunter's success.
Ruins of Chambersburg
Library of Congress
Patchan concludes with a summary of subsequent action in the Valley covered in more detail in other works. Of principal interest is his analysis of Early's misunderstanding of Sheridan's cautiousness in the Shenandoah. Little Phil understood the damage a Confederate victory there could do. Early mistakenly thought he had to drive the Northerners from the Valley when merely defeating them would distract from Federal progress elsewhere.
The detailed coverage of the critical period in question more than justifies reading this book.
On this day in 1864, Lt. Gen. Jubal Anderson Early and his reinforced Confederate corps arrived in front of Washington, D.C.
Brad Schulte, I think, once said that the Civil War was not fought in a silo.
I agree. I've been nattering at another historian along those lines and am practicing what I preach by reading several books on the Shenandoah Campaign of 1864. That campaign was more closely linked to the siege of Petersburg than the Atlanta Campaign. I'll get to the Atlanta Campaign later.
General Early and the Army of the Valley Movements Map
Courtesy of ThomasLegion.com
The first book covering the Shenandoah Campaign of 1864 that I read was Dr. Frank E. Vandiver's Jubal's Raid: General Early's Famous Attack on Washington in 1864. This is a short book, written in a distanced style with an occasional quotation. It was very gracefully written.
It covers the period that I'm writing about, the time of Grant's second offensive at Petersburg, June 20-July 1, 1864. During this period, General Early had just finished safeguarding the vital supply center of Lynchburg, Virginia from the depredations of Maj. Gen. David "Black Dave" Hunter. After seeing off Hunter into the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, Early turned to attack Washington, DC as Lee had proposed when Early was detached from the Army of Northern Virginia at Cold Harbor on June 12. From June 20 till July 1 Early's activities were largely unknown to the Federals at Petersburg and had little effect on the fighting there.
Dr. Vandiver points out that Grant had charged Hunter with wrecking and detaining in the Shenandoah. Hunter "was going "to achieve the best possible objective." (Page 8.) He was going to force Lee to detach a whole army corps from Cold Harbor to the Shenandoah.
In diverting Early's Corps from the Army of Northern Virginia to the Valley, Hunter was the victim of his own success. Though events after Early's swipe at Washington are beyond the scope of Dr. Vandiver's book, those who are aware of the subsequent struggle in the Shenandoah may decide that Early too was ultimately the victim of his own success. His activities in the Shenandoah diverted five infantry and two cavalry divisions from Grant's army group, compelled Grant to reorganize into one the multiple military departments covering the Shenandoah, and inspired Grant to put in charge a more talented commander than the Federals had previously had in the Valley--Sheridan. But that was not until August, which is covered in this book's brief Epilogue.
While Early was getting his instructions from Lee, Little Phil was accepting defeat at the hands of Hampton at Trevilian Station. Dr. Vandiver illuminates what Grant had had in mind for Sheridan and Hunter. Little Phil was sent west from Cold Harbor prior to Early's departure to divert Lee from Grant's impending crossing of the James, but also destroy the Virginia Central Railroad, unite with Hunter, then with him destroy Lynchburg, wreck the James River Canal and rejoin Grant's army group at Petersburg. (Page 14.) The reader can infer that the Shenandoah Valley was a two-way street, not just a gun pointed at Washington, DC. Substantial Confederate installations were vulnerable to any Federal force penetrating into the Valley's upper end, though that led such a force away from Washington. The Federals later worried about Early departing from the Shenandoah for Lee's army or even Georgia, but such moves were impossible so long as substantial Union forces remained in the Valley.
Dr. Vandiver seconds a curious comment of Lew Wallace on the Rebel Yell as a "vent to battle passion strangely unlike that of any other of the great fighting Anglo-Saxon families." (P. 117.) The Rebel Yell was not an Anglo-Saxon expression, though Anglo-Saxons in the Confederate State Army may have adopted it. Any Roman legionnaire serving in Britain or Gaul would have recognized this fundamentally Celtic ululation. There was and is plenty of Celtic blood in the South.
As Dr. Vandiver observes, during June 1864 Grant still worried that the Confederates in a reverse Chickamauga would ship troops from Georgia to Virginia. (Page 130.) The Southerners had no thought of such a move. In August, as some Northerners responded to Early's threats by suggesting that the siege of Petersburg be lifted to defend Washington, Grant took the position that such a development would free the Secessionists to ship troops to Georgia to smash Sherman.
Dr. Vandiver also points out that as Early neared Washington, it became clear that unless help came from the army groups of Grant or Sherman, no trained troops were available to defend the Union's capital. (Page 139.)
This book's problem is that its block quotations grow longer and longer until one of them gets about two pages long. (Page 133-135.) Anything in a block quotation should be pure gold. The two pages quoted were not pure, and Dr. Vandiver required an editor to reign him in.
In a brief epilogue summarizing events after Early's march to the gates of Washington, Dr. Vandiver thought it amazing that Grant would consider Hunter as well as Sheridan for command of the reorganized military department covering the Shenandoah in August. (Page 175.) Maybe Grant had more insight into Hunter and Sheridan than Dr. Vandiver gives Grant credit for. While Little Phil was unquestionably the better battlefield leader, he was a more cautious strategist than Hunter, who penetrated much farther into the upper Shenandoah. Hunter reached the gates of Lynchburg, which Sheridan failed to near in 1864 despite crushing victories over Early.
Cartoonist Al Capp caricatured Early as Jubilation T. Cornpone with Cornpone's Disaster, Cornpone's Catastrophe, etc. But Stonewall Jackson never had to face a battlefield leader such as Sheridan in command of a unified military department in the Shenandoah and overwhelming numbers.
For others this may be the day of the battle of Waterloo in 1815, but for me it's the day in 1864 when the Petersburg Regiment returned to its city after its departure on May 14, 1862.
I chose to begin the history of the regiment in media res on June 18, 1864 to pique the readers' interest enough to get them through the two chapters on the regiment's garrison duty in Norfolk from April 20, 1861 to May 7, 1862, to the nearly nonstop fighting in the subsequent 18 chapters.
The Prologue covers June 18, 1864. My account benefitted not only from Mrs. Charles E. Waddell's account of that day (two versions, one from her diary and the other that appears in MacRae's The Americans at Home, but with a surviving portion of the diary of her husband Capt. Charles E. Waddell of the 12th's Company A, the Petersburg City Guard (courtesy of John Coski of the American Civil War Museum in Richmond, God bless him!).
Flag of the 12th Virginia's Company A, the Petersburg City Guard
Virginia Historical Society
Mrs.
Charles E. Waddell lay in the darkness, listening to shells burst around her
house on Bollingbrook Street. Just
before one in the morning on June 18, 1864, a shell exploded so near that its
flash startled her. The crash shook
her. A shell fragment struck her back
porch, terrifying her sister. The two
women hurriedly dressed. With a pair of
slaves, they scurried into a neighbor’s basement, huddling there for the rest
of the night as shells burst outside.
After
sunrise, Mrs. Waddell’s sister and their mother packed and left for Raleigh,
North Carolina. Short on food, low on
money and weak from a recent illness, Mrs. Waddell remained home.
She
knew that at any moment a cannonball might kill her. She could not imagine what would become of
her if the Yankees succeeded in storming her city. Until she learned the fate of her husband in
the terrible campaign that had opened in northern Virginia a month and a half
earlier, though, she refused to leave. She
the rest of the city expected his unit to arrive momentarily.
At
four o'clock that bright, hot afternoon, Mrs. Waddell sat down to dinner. Amid her meal, the sound of approaching fifes
and drums rose above the cannon fire and musketry. She ran to the front door.
The
Petersburg Regiment had come home. “Sure
enough,” she recorded that evening, “our own gallant 12th Va. Regiment” led the
column turning into the street. She
could scarcely recognize the dusty, ragged veterans as the impeccably dressed
recruits who had gone off to war more than three years earlier. “It made one's
heart ache to look at them,” wrote Mrs. Waddell, “and oh! how many familiar
faces we missed…..” The 12th consisted mainly
of men from Petersburg. Hardly a family
in the city lacked a relative or friend in the regiment’s ranks. Fathers and mothers, sisters and sweethearts
rushed out of their houses to greet their dear ones as the 12th passed. Down the street from Mrs. Waddell’s house, a
mother and daughter ran up a Confederate flag in honor of the regiment’s
return. The tired soldiers cheered
feebly.
The
column swung up Bollingbrook Street.
Mrs. Waddell saw a poor, thin figure step out of the ranks and wave his battered
hat to her. Despite his dust, rags and
emaciation, she recognized her husband, Capt. Charles E. Waddell, commander of
the 12th’s Company A, the Petersburg City Guard. “For a moment I felt frantic with joy to know
him that near me and safe; and then overwhelmed with grief to see him in such a
sad plight, and to know he was then marching towards death and danger,” she
recorded.[1] He passed so quickly that “Fan,” as he called
her, could not get through the crowd to him, but their slave Becky found an
unobstructed route.[2] Rushing into the ranks, Becky seized the
captain's hand and cheered him with news of home and loved ones.
The
regiment turned left onto Sycamore Street.
Friends and relatives of the 12th’s soldiers almost blocked this street. Private George Bernard of the 12th’s Company
E, the Petersburg Riflemen, recorded finding it “difficult to realize that we
were within 2 miles of the enemy’s shells & that we were preparing to take
position in line of battle.”[3] The numerous ladies greeting the troops made
them feel as if they were going to take part in some festivity.
Near
Sycamore's intersection with Tabb Street, the column passed between the
courthouse, with its four-faced clock tower on the eastern side of Sycamore,
and the Iron Front Building opposite. From
the Iron Front Building’s windows, people threw plugs of tobacco to the
veterans. The owner of one home farther
south on Sycamore brought to his front gate a bucket of water and two gourds
for the soldiers. Another homeowner
allowed the 12th’s men to fill their canteens with warm coffee out of a
hogshead in one of his wagons.
The
ecstatic greeting accorded the Petersburg soldiers awakened pangs of sadness
and bitterness in one of the regiment’s men from enemy-occupied Norfolk. Sergeant John Sale of the 12th’s Company H,
the Norfolk Juniors, recorded, “These attentions (which of course were to be
expected) made me feel how easily our home was given up to the enemy.”[4] On the way to Petersburg, the 12th’s soldiers
had heard a rumor that the invaders were in possession of the heights southeast
of the city. “I, and I reckon most of
the command, fully expected to charge the Federals on the heights,” recalled the
Riflemen’s Pvt. Putnam Stith. When the
regiment reached Marshall Street, about half a mile south of Bollingbrook, the
men saw riding toward them Lt. Col. Gilbert Moxley Sorrel of the staff of
Anderson’s Corps. The soldiers called
out: “Lead us, Sorrel! Lead us as you
did in the Wilderness!”[5] Sorrel doffed his hat and bowed low. Remarking that nothing would please him
better than to lead them in another charge, he told them they would do no
fighting that evening. They had only to
go out a short distance from the city, form a line and rest.
At
5 p.m., the troops bivouacked in a pine grove near the Wilcox farm, known as
Walnut Hill, two miles south of Petersburg.
Many looked among the trees for a place to sleep after their tramp of
nearly thirty miles, which had begun at four o’clock that morning. “I saw a pile of small brush…so I used it as
a mattress by putting my blanket on it and I got on it and it was a nice spring
mattress sure enough,” recalled First Lt. James Phillips of the 12th’s Company
G, the Richmond Grays. “I slept on it…as
comfortable as could expect.”[6] Soldiers remaining awake enjoyed a barrel of
coffee and copious crackers sent by the townspeople. “Our ration of late has been so good &
abundant I rather think we live quite as well as the citizens,” remembered
Bernard.[7]
Roused
in the middle of the night along with the rest of Weisiger’s brigade, the 12th’s
men staggered into the fortifications on the right of Anderson’s Corps at 2
a.m. Weisiger’s brigade belonged to
Mahone’s division, which was manning Petersburg’s earthworks between Jerusalem
Plank Road and the Petersburg & Weldon Railroad.
Since
the war's beginning, the 12th, its brigade and its division had not
consistently distinguished themselves. In
the months of fighting that remained, while many of the regiment’s men literally
fought for their homes, the 12th, Weisiger’s brigade and Mahone’s division
would become some of the Army of Northern Virginia’s most renowned shock troops.[8]
[1] Mrs. Charles E. Waddell Diary, June 18,
1864, Papers of Miss Georgia Hicks, Collection of the United Daughters of the
Confederacy, North Carolina Division, North Carolina Department of Archives and
History, Raleigh, North Carolina.
Punctuation, capitalization, emphasis and spelling in quotations have
been left alone whenever possible.
[2] Charles E. Waddell Diary, August 8,
1863, American Civil War Museum (ACWM), Richmond, Virginia.
[3] George S. Bernard Diary, June 19,
1864, George S. Bernard Papers, Alderman Library, University of Virginia (UVA),
Charlottesville, Virginia. This
collection also includes all Bernard’s letters.
[4] John F. Sale Diary, June 18, 1864,
John F. Sale Papers, Library of Virginia (LV), Richmond, Virginia.
[5] John R. Turner, “The Battle of the
Wilderness: The Part Taken By Mahone’s
Brigade; An Address Delivered By Comrade John R. Turner Before A. P. Hill Camp
Of Confederate Veterans, Of Petersburg, Va., On The Evening Of March 3rd,
1892,” in George S. Bernard, ed., War
Talks Of Confederate Veterans (Petersburg, 1892), 95.
[6] James Eldred Phillips Memoir,
James Eldred Phillips Papers, Virginia Historical Society (VHS), Richmond,
Virginia.
[7] Bernard Diary, June 19, 1864.
[8] Douglas Southall Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study In Command (3 vols.) (New York,
1942-1944), 3:xxxviii.
From The Petersburg Regiment in the Civil War: A History of the 12th Virginia Infantry from John Brown's Hanging to Appomattox, 1859-1865 (Savas Beatie, 2019), Winner of the 2019 Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award for Unit History.
The first Memorial Day occurred June 9, 1865, in Petersburg, Virginia.
Confederate Arch, Blandford Cemetery, Petersburg, Virginia
The ladies of Petersburg went out to Blandford Cemetery just east of town to decorate the graves of their friends and relatives who had perished on June 9, 1864, repelling a Federal attack on the city. The definitive account of that fight is in William Glenn Robertson's excellent The First Battle for Petersburg: The Attack and Defense of the Cockade City, June 9, 1864 (Savas Beatie, 2015). Soldiers from many wars are buried in Blandford Cemetery, beginning with the War of Independence. Thirty thousand Confederate dead are buried there. The wife of the commandant of the Federal troops occupying Petersburg spread to the North the idea of a day commemorating war dead. Scott, James G., and Wyatt, Edward A. Petersburg's Story: A History. Petersburg: Titmus Optical Co., 1960.
Blandford Church
Blandford Church, built 1734-1737, stands beside Blandford Cemetery. The church was in ruins during the Civil War but was subsequently restored and adorned with 15 Tiffany stained-glass windows.
Library of Congress
Ambulance Corps men had to be the bravest of the brave. They had to pick up the wounded under fire, lest the unwounded become demoralized. Pvt. Leonidas H. Dean of the 12th's Company B, the Petersburg Old Grays, a member of the ambulance corps, had distinguished himself on May 6, 1864 in the Wilderness, dragging many wounded Yankees out of the burning woods, but he could not rescue them all. Some perished in the flames.
On May 12, east of Heth's Salient at Spotsylvania, Weisiger's brigade of Mahone's division and Lane's brigade of Cadmus Wilcox's division engaged Orlando Willcox's division and Federal batteries. Weisiger's brigade and Lane's brigade captured flags and prisoners in an enormous melee. Dean grabbed a musket and captured a beautiful stand of colors from the 51st Pennsylvania Infantry along with eight Keystoners.[1] During the following months Dean would continue to distinguish himself and justify being named after the Spartan king who perished at Thermopylae.
[1] OR 36, 3:802; Statement of Napoleon Bonaparte Simmons, Notes of St.
George Tucker Coalter Bryan; John Horn, The Petersburg Regiment in the Civil War: A History of the 12th Virginia Infantry from John Brown's Hanging to Appomattox, 1859-1865 (Savas Beatie, 2019), Winner of the 2019 Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award for Unit History, 232, 249.
Winslow Homer, a Special Artist for "Harper's Weekly" magazine, accompanied Brig. Gen. Francis Channing Barlow on his reconnaissance toward the Weldon Railroad south of Petersburg on June 21, 1864. This was at the beginning of the battle of Jerusalem Plank Road, a Federal disaster during the first attempt to envelop the Cockade City from the plank road to the Appomattox above the city. Barlow, a Harvard educated New York lawyer, was a brave soldier but an unlucky general wounded at Antietam and Gettysburg. He was ambushed about a mile short of the tracks by Brig. Gen Rufus Clay Barringer, who had studied law with his brother in North Carolina after graduating from the University of North Carolina. Barringer, nicknamed "Aunt Nancy," repulsed Barlow.
After the war, Homer drew on his sketches of the period to paint "Prisoners from the Front", in 1866. This painting established his reputation.
There follow excerpts on the June 21, 1864 fight from my forthcoming book on Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's second offensive at Petersburg.
.jpg)
Winslow Homer, Prisoners from the Front (1866), Metropolitan Museum of Art
***
After
the United States Army had crossed the James, it failed to take Petersburg by
assault. On the morning of June 21,
1864, the army set out to invest Petersburg from the army’s left on Jerusalem
Plank Road to the Appomattox River above the city. II Corps, the army’s crack formation, led the
way.
The corps moved out from the Avery house with Barlow’s division in the van. Troops of II Corps units prior to the March
23, 1864 consolidation of II Corps with the former III Corps wore as their
insignia a club or clover, with a different color for each division. Barlow’s division wore a red club. Inadvertently left on the fog-covered picket
line until five that morning, Pvt. William Horton of the 26th Michigan in
Miles’ brigade of the Red Club Division began the hike with little sleep. “We come up with the regt about 8 o’clock,”
he recorded. “We eat our Breakfast and
lay Down for a little rest. We are
routed up and ordered to march….” Major General David Bell Birney, an Alabama-born Philadelphia lawyer, led the corps that day because Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock was suffering from his Gettysburg wound. At 10 a.m., Birney ordered Mott's division back at the Avery house to dispatch
the 2nd United States Sharpshooters to lead the column of Barlow’s
division. Shortly after 10 a.m., Barlow's division crossed the Norfolk & Petersburg Railroad near the deserted, white
Southwell house while V Corps moved its left up to Jerusalem Plank Road south
of the Dimmock Line.
Gibbon’s division departed the Avery house next. Mott’s division left the Avery house last. Shortly afterward, Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman III, who had studied at Harvard before joining Meade’s staff as archivist, fell in with the men of Mott’s division as they plodded along the road past the Southwell house. Major General George Gordon Meade, the commander of the Army of the Potomac, had sent Lyman to accompany II Corps and report on its progress. “The road was narrow and full of troops, and led by several clearings where young corn was growing—small, it seemed to me for the season,” Lyman recalled. The column marched through a gently undulating landscape of fields and woods, affording little opportunity for the employment of artillery and parched by the sun. “The weather is very hot, and we cannot procure anything to drink but warm, muddy water, made so by men, mules and horses all rushing into it,” Second Lieutenant George Augustus Armes of the corps staff remembered. “Canteens and tin cups by the hundreds can be seen by the side of a mule's or horse's front or hind leg or nose in the water, and other men hurrying out of their way, so as to dip their caps in and drink, as if the water was from a nice cool spring.”
***
About
noon on June 21, Barlow’s division reached a wide road—Jerusalem Plank Road--at
right angles to the division’s march route.
To the left lay a big cornfield and a large white wooden house with
several dependencies, deserted by the Williams family, which had fled to
Petersburg taking their furniture but leaving some slaves, some cows and, most
importantly to Lyman, some ice.
At
the plank road, the Red Club Division encountered videttes from Barringer’s
North Carolina Cavalry Brigade of William Henry Fitzhugh “Rooney” Lee’s
division. The videttes came from picket posts about a
mile east of the Weldon Railroad for the first few miles south of
Petersburg. Troopers of the 3rd North
Carolina of Barringer’s brigade manned the picket posts. The body of the 3rd encamped by the railway
near the Davis house about five miles south of Petersburg. The rest of Barringer’s brigade tented by the
railroad near Globe Tavern, just over a mile farther south. Dearing’s brigade of Local Defense Troops,
horsemen temporarily assigned to Rooney Lee’s division, picketed the railroad
still farther southward, to the vicinity of Reams Station, about 12 miles south
of the Cockade City. Both Confederate
brigades had orders to drive off any raiding party attempting to damage the
railway.
Birney
had to make a choice when he reached the plank road. His orders left him with some
discretion. He could extend as far to
the left as practicable, hopefully to the Weldon Railroad, and then close up to
the Confederate line as closely as possible.
Or he could close up to the Secessionist line as closely as possible,
and then extend as far to the left as practicable, hopefully to the Weldon
Railroad. Birney explored the first option, sending Barlow’s division alone toward
the railroad and holding back Gibbon’s and Mott’s divisions near the Williams
house.
Barlow’s
division crossed the plank road and slowly advanced along the lane beyond the
Williams farm throwing up rifle pits during pauses. Crowninshield’s
detachment of Bryan’s ad hoc cavalry brigade led, supported by Miles’
brigade. Bryan’s brigade consisted of
the 1st Massachusetts, the 3rd New Jersey and the 18th Pennsylvania. Brigadier General Nelson Appleton Miles, a
former crockery store clerk wounded at Chancellorsville, deployed as
skirmishers the 61st New York, the Clinton Guards, to the right of the lane,
and the 81st Pennsylvania to the lane’s left.
The
3rd North Carolina’s videttes resisted the advance of Barlow’s division. “The firing began to grow very lively as soon
as we reached the Jerusalem plank road, where we were obliged to halt, and feel
our way slowly, and fortify as we advanced,” remembered Lieutenant Armes. Soon the lane entered woods near the Browder
farm, and wounded began to come in, some walking and others on stretchers. Companies H and K of the 116th Pennsylvania
in Moroney’s brigade skirmished on the flank of Barlow’s column. “I shot at a reb cavalry man I thought I had
killed him, I went down and found the Johnnie gone, but I found where he had
been the most beautiful double barreled shot gun I ever seen,” noted First Sgt.
Samuel A. Clear of Company K. “I kept it
a while and then I had to lay it down in the woods and leave it lay. I would have given fifty dollars to of had it
sent home.”
On
the Browder farm, Barlow’s division reached a fork in the lane and took the
track leading first to the left and then northwestward past the Aiken farm
toward the 3rd North Carolina’s picket post on the Risdon farm. By 12:55 p.m., the divisions of Gibbon and
Mott had reached the Williams farm and were massing there. They could still either support support the Red Club Division if it ran into trouble or head northward to take position on the right of V Corps. At about 1 p.m., a contraband informed Brig.
Gen. Francis Channing Barlow that his division had arrived within two and a
half miles of the railway. “The cavalry
report the enemy in force and have had a little firing,” reported Barlow. “It is nothing.”
-.jpg)
Brigadier General Francis Channing Barlow (Library of Congress)
***
Meanwhile, the 2nd United States Sharpshooters
was still hustling from Mott’s division at the rear of Birney’s column to
Barlow’s division at its head. The
marksmen had started off almost at the double quick. As they hurried along, they left behind First
Sgt. Wyman Silas White of Company F, one of the regiment’s New Hampshire
companies.
Infantrymen
were marching abreast of the sharpshooters on the other side of a high fence in
the slightly rolling fields, interspersed with woods, streams and swamps. White had lost his rifle’s tompion, a wooden
plug designed to keep the water out of the rifle barrel. As he hastened along, he noticed an
infantryman’s tompion just hanging in the muzzle of his rifle. “I called Captain [Samuel F.] Murry’s
attention to it and told him that when the [tompion] dropped, I was going to
get it,” remembered White. “I climbed
over the high fence and had just gotten over when the coveted [tompion] hit a
fence stake and fell to the ground.” Picking up the tompion, White walked along
the fence hoping to find a place with the boards down so that he could get back
into the road without climbing over the fence again.
White
found such a place near a fork in the road.
He discovered that his regiment had outmarched him and gotten out of
sight. He could not tell which road his
comrades had taken. “I took the right
hand road for it led more towards the enemy’s lines and I heard firing in that
direction,” White remembered. “I knew
General Barlow had borrowed our regiment to do skirmishing where he was
intending to attack the enemy.” White hurried on expecting to overtake his
regiment, passing infantrymen who were forming a line at right angles to the
road. Expecting to strike his regiment
deployed in a skirmish line, he followed the road until he reached a
curve. Two or three hundred feet ahead,
he saw a Rebel picket post. “There were
three of them around a small fire right in the road and they were doing some
cooking for there was no other use of a fire that hot June day,” he
recalled. “They did not see me at all.”
White
turned and put as much distance as he could between the Southerners and
himself. “The firing became quite brisk
at that time,” White remembered.
***
Shortly
before 3 p.m., “what was
left of the Regt…were placed in the advance, as advance guard,” recalled Pvt.
William B. Greene, a former student in New Hampshire in the 2nd United States
Sharpshooters’ Company G. “The men were
nearly played out with fast marching but no rest was granted them.” Barlow employed the sharpshooters, known as
Green Coats because of their uniforms, to replace the cavalry, which he
considered useless. Lieutenant
Colonel Homer Richard Stoughton, a Vermonter and former railroad man wounded at
Po River that May, had just rejoined the 2nd and assumed its command that
morning. The landscape the sharpshooters
threaded their way through, remembered First Lt. Charles A. Stevens, “was
covered with deep woods, tangled brush, creeks and swamps, making the movement
tedious and unsatisfactory.” The marksmen soon pushed the sentinels of the
3rd North Carolina back from their picket post on the Risdon farm.
***
-.jpg)
General Robert Edward Lee had written off the Weldon Railroad as indefensible because of its proximity to the Federal lines. Despite his negative prognosis for the railroad, the advance of II Corps toward the tracks surprised the Confederates. Brigadier General Rufus Clay Barringer, a lawyer known to his troops as “Aunt Nancy,” led the Tarheel cavalry brigade of Maj. Gen. William Henry Fitzhugh “Rooney” Lee’s cavalry division. Captain John Marion Galloway of Company D in the 5th North Carolina Cavalry of Barringer’s brigade considered Barringer, “Brave enough, but of a prudent, methodical, cautious temperament.” Another Tarheel trooper thought Barringer old and slow but a good officer.
Barringer and his staff “had mounted and were only waiting for the Bugle to sound, the signal to march, when a courier dashed up at breathless speed from Col. John Algernon Baker, who, with his regiment, the 3rd, was on picket duty about three miles away, reporting that he was being hard pressed by the enemy and was in dire need of quick re-enforcements,” recalled First Lt. Fred C. Foard, recently appointed aide-de-camp to Barringer. Aunt Nancy hurriedly formed his line. “We were wholly without support, but the thick undergrowth and other surroundings favored a vigorous resistance in a dismounted fight,” Barringer recalled.
Map by Hal Jespersen
The
Tarheel, who had read law with his elder brother and suffered wounds at Brandy
Station and Bristoe Station, prepared an ambush for Barlow, a Harvard-educated New York lawyer wounded at Antietam and Gettysburg
who liked to wear a red flannel shirt and carry a cavalry sabre with which to
swat skulkers. Barringer had McGregor’s
battery, the 2nd Stuart Light Horse Artillery, unlimber at a high yet screened
spot near the Davis house on the railroad at the junction of Vaughan and
Halifax Roads, about two and a half miles south of Petersburg. Aunt Nancy kept the 5th North Carolina
Cavalry in reserve behind the guns. He
dismounted the 1st and 2nd North Carolina Cavalry and formed two heavy skirmish
lines. The men 2nd formed the first line, concealed
in the undergrowth on the eastern border of the Davis farm, about a quarter
mile behind the 3rd North Carolina’s picket post and three quarters of a mile
from the railroad. The 2nd’s troopers
received instructions not to fire until the Federals came within 100 yards of
them. Then these Tarheels would fire a
single volley. In the trees a short
distance to the rear, Barringer’s first line would join the 1st North Carolina
in his second line and they would make a stand along the lane that led to the
railway round a half mile to the west.
When the Federals reached that defile in the timber, the four 3-inch
rifles of McGregor’s battery would open fire.
***
Soon
after 3 p.m., having pushed back the pickets of the 3rd North Carolina Cavalry,
the 2nd United States Sharpshooters arrived at the border of the Davis
farm. Stoughton “was marching along in
his shirt sleeves singing I haven’t got long to stay etc.,” Greene recalled. Dismounted troopers of the 2nd North Carolina
in Barringer’s first skirmish line and fugitives from the 3rd who had fallen
back to that line, hidden along both sides of the lane, poured a volley into
the Green Coats. Stoughton reacted
immediately. ‘When the volley came in he
sung out to the boys to go over the fence and give it to them,” Greene
remembered. “Over the boys went and
pitched into them & drove them in to their entrenchments near by.” Stoughton sought support from the 111th New
York’s Col. Clinton F. MacDougall, a former banker whose brigade had by this
time deployed on the left of the lane while Miles’ brigade had shifted to the
lane’s right. The Vermonter told the New
Yorker that the Rebels outnumbered the sharpshooters.
“Go
on,” replied MacDougall, treating the Green Coats with the same contempt with
which his division commander had treated Crowninshield’s cavalry, “there is
nothing in your front.”
Stoughton
resumed his advance without support for his sharpshooters. They soon struck the second line of
Barringer’s skirmishers. The Secessionists loosed another volley and
McGregor’s guns opened. Shells burst
over the Red Club men following Stoughton’s troops. In the 57th New York, one projectile killed three men and a second
killed one and wounded others.
Led
by Colonel Baker and Lieutenant Foard, the Tarheels counterattacked. The Green Coats faltered and fell back. “Our boys met them but it was a dear old meet
for they came right up near enough to use the bayonet,” Greene remembered. Soon Companies A and B of the sharpshooters
reported themselves in danger of capture because the Rebels were overlapping
their line. Stoughton directed his men
to break for the rear on their respective flanks. “Some of the boys run & in fact, most all
of them,” recalled Greene. The North Carolinians surged back across the
Risdon farm and seized many prisoners from the Green Coats, including Stoughton,
who remembered, “I
heard what I supposed was support coming on mv left and rear, and in attempting
to adjust and join the line, fell into the hands of the 2d N. C. cavalry,
dismounted.”
“The
ground over which we…fought was wooded with dense undergrowth, the opposing
lines were very close together, not more than 15 or 20 yards apart,” recalled
Lieutenant Foard. “Captain Henry Coleman
of the 1st Regiment perceiving a field Officer mounted and close up to his line,
dashed throught [sic] both skirmish lines, seizing his bridal rein and with the
muzzle of his pistol against the Officer’s body, brought him in to our lines a
prisoner,” recalled Foard.
Rallying quickly near the captured
picket post, the Union sharpshooters charged again. Some of the men in the 2nd’s Company B, a
mostly Michigan unit, captured Lieutenant Foard and Colonel Baker, a Harvard
educated lawyer, near the Risdon barn.
The pair had had gotten too far ahead of their troops. “In the surging of the battle back and forth,
I suddenly found myself entirely surrounded by the enemy and was taken prisoner
just at the close of the battle,” Foard recalled.
Fire from the dismounted Tarheels at
short range cut down many Green Coats.
“The Federal officers dashed bravely forward and called upon their
troops to follow,” remembered Pvt. Paul B. Means of the 5th North Carolina
Cavalry’s Company F. “But volley after
volley thinned their ranks and they broke and fled.” MacDougall deployed the 111th, 125th and the
126th New York in support of the Green Coats and the New Yorkers along with
Miles’ brigade gradually drove the Confederates back toward the Davis
farm.
The Red Club commander considered
his brush with the dismounted enemy cavalry “quite a skirmish.” The Federals lost at least 20 killed and
wounded. Barringer lost five killed, 23 wounded, one
wounded and captured, and eight more missing for a total of 37. The contraband with Barlow’s column now
informed the division commander that he had arrived within two miles of the
railroad. In fact, only about a mile separated the
Federals from the tracks. Barlow,
believing his division isolated, slowed his advance and sought orders from his
corps commander. “It is for you to
decide whether it is safe for us to advance so as to separate this division
from farther from the rest of the corps,” Barlow wrote to Birney, who had
established his headquarters at the Williams house. “We cannot both advance and keep up
connection with the rest of the corps.
Is General Gibbon close behind me, as I understood he was to be?”
Barlow’s message to Birney
illuminated the problems now faced by the Federal high command in its attempt
to sever the Weldon and Southside railroads and invest Petersburg to the
Appomattox west of the city. The commander
of the Army of the Potomac was pushing piecemeal into unfamiliar territory with
roughly half the troops contemplated by the Federal plan. Birney could not connect with both the Weldon
Railroad and V Corps. Barlow could not
both advance and connect with the rest of II Corps. The only force otherwise available to extend
Birney’s line or assist Barlow—Ricketts’ division of VI Corps—remained in
reserve near the trenches which the other divisions of its corps occupied.
While Barlow’s courier rode toward
Birney, White found his regiment. “I was
soon on the left hand road and came into an open field and there found my
regiment, or what was left of it,” he recalled.
“I was lucky enough to escape being in the frazzle of a skirmish, all
through the picking up of the lost [tompion]. I was pleased for I could have been of no use
if I had been there and I might have been either killed, wounded or
captured. As it was, I was spared to
fight another day.”
***
Around the time Barlow’s courier
reached Birney, Meade rode up to the Williams house, where he found Birney and
Lyman. In light of the ambush Barlow had
endured and the unforeseen distance between Jerusalem Plank Road and the Weldon
Railroad, Meade authorized Birney to terminate Barlow’s reconnaissance toward
the railway, swing all three divisions of II Corps into position on the left of
V Corps, get as close as possible to the enemy’s line of fortifications, and
extend as far to the left as practicable—which could be no farther than the
Weldon Railroad even if the corps stretched westward in a single line, and
could under no circumstances be to the Appomattox above Petersburg. Meade ordered VI Corps to reinforce Birney with Ricketts’ division.
Birney ordered Barlow to withdraw
and directed Gibbon and Mott to move up beside V Corps. Barlow would have to wait to join them until
Ricketts’ division arrived to take the place of the Red Club Division, which
withdrew by a more northerly route than on the way out and threw up another
line of pits northwest of the Browder farm. Ricketts’ division started moving out from
its bivouac and was crossing the Norfolk & Petersburg and turning south on
Jerusalem Plank Road by 4:40 p.m.
***
The battle of Jerusalem Plank Road had begun inauspiciously for the Federals. Without Barringer’s repulse of Barlow, the Northerners would have reached the Weldon Railroad on June 21. Now the parried Federal thrust had alerted the Southerners to the danger to their right. Subsequent attempts to turn it would encounter more resistance.
Barlow's repulse at Barringer's hands forfeited the element of surprise and insured that subsequent Federal attempts to reach the Weldon Railroad would meet with more formidable resistance. The
defiant attitude of one of the prisoners in Winslow Homer's painting may be the only indication that they had defeated Barlow, and not vice versa.
Copyright John Horn 2022
