Inactivity of the Army of Northern Virginia.--Expeditions of Custer,
Kilpatrick, and Dahlgren for the Destruction of Railroads, the
Burning of Richmond, and Killing the Officers of the Government.--
Repelled by Government Clerks.--Papers on Dahlgren's Body.--Repulse
of Butler's Raid from Bermuda Hundred.--Advance of Sheridan repulsed
at Richmond.--Stuart resists Sheridan.--Stuart's Death.--Remarks
on Grant's Plan of Campaign.--Movement of General Butler.--Drury's
Bluff.--Battle there.--Campaign of Grant in Virginia.
Both the Army of Northern Virginia and the army under General Meade
remained in a state of comparative inaction during the months of
January and February, 1864.
On February 26, 1864, while General Lee's headquarters were at Orange
Court-House, two corps of the army of the enemy left their camp for
Madison Court-House. The object was, by a formidable feint, to engage
the attention of General Lee, and conceal from him their plans for a
surprise and, if possible, capture of the city of Richmond. This was
to be a concerted movement, in which General Butler, in command of
the forces on the Peninsula, was to move up and make a demonstration
upon Richmond on the east, while Generals Custer and Kilpatrick and
Colonel Dahlgren were to attack it and enter on the west and north.
Two days later another army corps left for Madison Court-House, and
other forces subsequently followed. At the same time General Custer,
with two ten-inch Parrott guns and fifteen hundred picked men,
marched for Charlottesville by the James City road. His purpose was
to destroy the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, running by
Charlottesville to Gordonsville, where the junction was made of the
railroad running north from Lynchburg, with the Central running to
Richmond. The capture of the army stores there, the destruction of
the tracks running south, west, and east, and cutting the telegraph,
would have severed the communication between Lee's army and Richmond
by that route. This movement, with the destruction of railroads by
General Kilpatrick, and of the Central Railroad and the James River
and Kanawha Canal by Colonel Dahlgren, would have isolated that army
from its base of supplies.
[Illustration: General Wade Hampton]
Three hours later, on the same day on which General Custer started,
General Kilpatrick with five thousand picked cavalry and a light
battery of six guns, left Stevensburg, near Culpeper Court-House, for
the lower fords of the Rapidan. His object was to make a dash upon
Richmond for the purpose of releasing the United States prisoners,
and doing whatever injury might be possible. He moved rapidly,
destroying railroads and depots, and plundering the country, but
found no obstacle except in being closely harassed in his rear by
Colonel Bradley T. Johnson with his sixty Marylanders, who, with
extraordinary daring, activity, and skill, followed him until he
reached the line of the defenses of Richmond. There, while attacked
in the rear by Colonel Johnson and his pickets driven in, he was at
the same time opposed in front by Colonel W. H. Stevens, who, with a
detachment of engineer troops, manned a few sections of light
artillery. After an engagement of thirty minutes, Kilpatrick's entire
force began to retreat in the direction of the Meadow Bridge on the
Central Railroad. At night his camp-fires were discovered by General
Wade Hampton, who dismounted one hundred men to act as infantry, and,
supported by the cavalry, opened his two-gun battery upon the enemy
at short range. He then attacked the camp of Davies's and of a part
of two other brigades. The camp was taken, and the whole force of
Kilpatrick fled at a gallop, leaving one hundred and five prisoners
and more than one hundred horses.
Colonel Dahlgren started with General Kilpatrick, but at
Spottsylvania Court-House was dispatched with five hundred men to
Frederickhall, a depot of the Central Railroad, where some eighty
pieces of our reserve artillery had been parked. His orders were to
destroy the artillery, the railroads, and telegraph-lines. Finding
the artillery too well guarded, he proceeded to destroy the line of
railroad as far as Hanover Junction. Thence he moved toward the James
River and Kanawha Canal, which he reached twenty-two miles west of
Richmond. Thence his command moved toward the city, pillaging and
destroying dwelling-houses, out-buildings, mills, canal-boats, grain,
and cattle, and cutting one lock on the canal. The first resistance
met was by a battalion of General G. W. C. Lee's force, consisting of
about two hundred and twenty of the armory-men, under command of
their major, Ford. This small body was driven back until it joined a
battalion of the Treasury Department clerks, who, in the absence of
their major, Henly, were led by Captain McIlhenney. The officers and
men were all clerks of the Treasury Department, and, like those of
other departments and many citizens of Richmond, who were either too
old or too young to be in the army, were enrolled and organized to
defend the capital in the absence of troops. Captain McIlhenney, as
soon as he saw the enemy, promptly arranged to attack. This was done
with such impetuosity that Dahlgren and his men wore routed, leaving
some eighteen killed, twenty to thirty wounded, and as many more
prisoners. About a hundred horses, with equipments, a number of
small-arms, and one three-inch Napoleon gun were captured. Our loss
was one captain and two lieutenants killed, three lieutenants and
seven privates wounded--one of the latter mortally. This feat of the
Clerks' Battalion commanded the grateful admiration of the people,
and the large concourse that attended the funeral of the fallen
expressed the public lamentation.
Dahlgren now commenced his retreat. To increase the chances of
escape, the force was divided, he leading one party in the direction
of King and Queen County. The home guard of the country turned out
against the raiders, and, being joined by a detachment from the
Forty-second Battalion of Virginia Cavalry and some furloughed
cavalry-men of Lee's army, surprised and attacked the retreating
column of Dahlgren, killed the leader, and captured nearly one
hundred prisoners, with negroes, horses, etc.
On the body of Dahlgren was found an address to his officers and men,
another paper giving special orders and instructions, and one giving
his itinerary, the whole disclosing the unsoldierly means and
purposes of the raid, such as disguising the men in our uniform,
carrying supplies of oakum and turpentine to burn Richmond, and,
after releasing their prisoners on Belle Isle, to exhort them to
destroy the hateful city, while on all was impressed the special
injunction that the city must be burned, and "Jeff Davis and Cabinet
killed."
The prisoners, having been captured in disguise, were, under the
usages of war, liable to be hanged as spies, but their protestations
that their service was not voluntary, and the fact that as enlisted
men they were subject to orders, and could not be held responsible
for the infamous instructions under which they were acting, saved
them from the death-penalty they had fully incurred. Photographic
copies of the papers found on Dahlgren's body were taken and sent to
General Lee, with instructions to communicate them to General Meade,
commanding the enemy's forces in his front, with an inquiry as to
whether such practices were authorized by his Government, and also to
say that, if any question was raised as to the copies, the original
paper would be submitted. No such question was then made, and the
denial that Dahlgren's conduct had been authorized was accepted.
Many sensational stories, having not even a basis of truth, were put
in circulation to exhibit the Confederate authorities as having acted
with unwarrantable malignity toward the deceased Colonel Dahlgren.
The fact was, that his body was sent to Richmond and decently
interred in the Oakwood Cemetery, where other Federal soldiers were
buried. The enormity of his offenses was not forgotten, but
resentment against him ended with his life. It was also admitted
that, however bad his preceding conduct had been, he met his fate
gallantly, charging at the head of his men when he found himself
inextricably encompassed by his foe.
Custer and Kilpatrick, who were to coöperate with him in the
expedition, especially the first-named, manifested a saving degree of
"that rascally virtue," as Charles Lee, of Revolutionary memory,
called it. After the feeble demonstration upon some parked artillery
which has been described, he fancied that he heard the roaring of
cars coming with reënforcements, and retreated, burning the bridges
behind him--a precaution quite in vain, as there were none there to
pursue him.
Kilpatrick, followed as above stated by Colonel Bradley T. Johnson,
who hung close upon his rear, finally reached the defenses of
Richmond. There, out of respect to the field artillery he
encountered, he turned off to cross the Chickahominy, and that night
he was routed by the cavalry command of our gallant cavalier General
Wade Hampton. Thus ended the combined movement with which Northern
papers had regaled their readers by announcing as made "with
instructions to sack the rebel capital."
During the first week in May, Major-General B. F. Butler landed at
Bermuda Hundred with a considerable force, and moved up so as to cut
the telegraph line and reach by a raiding party the railroad at
Chester, between Richmond and Petersburg. General Ransom, then in
command of the defenses at Richmond and those of Drury's Bluff, with
a small force, attacked the advance of General Butler, and after a
sharp skirmish compelled him to withdraw.
Meantime, because of the warning which Stuart had sent, General
Ransom was summoned to Richmond to resist an impending assault by
General Sheridan on the outer works north of the city. Taking the two
disposable brigades of Gracie and Fry and a light battery, he
hastened forward, arriving at the fortifications on the
Mechanicsville Turnpike; just in time to see a battery of artillery,
then entirely unsupported, repulse the advance of Sheridan. During
the night the clerks and citizens, under General G. W. Custis Lee,
had formed a thin line along part of the fortifications on the west
side of the city. As the day advanced, Oracle's brigade was thrown in
front of the works and pressed forward to feel Sheridan; but it was
regarded as worse than useless with two small brigades to engage in
an open country many times their number of well-appointed cavalry,
Sheridan showed no purpose to attack, but withdrew from before our
defenses, and the two brigades returned to the vicinity of Drury's
Bluff--the approach on the south side of James River, by forces
under General Butler, being then considered the most imminent danger
to Richmond.
After the battle of the Wilderness, on May 4th and 5th, as hereafter
narrated, General Grant moved his army toward Spottsylvania
Court-House, and General Lee made a corresponding movement. At this
time Sheridan, with a large force of United States cavalry, passed
around and to the rear of our army, so as to place himself on the
road to Richmond, which, in the absence of a garrison to defend it,
he may have not unreasonably thought might be surprised and captured.
Stuart, our most distinguished cavalry commander--fearless, faithful
Stuart--soon knew of Sheridan's movement, perceived its purpose,
and, with his usual devotion to his country's welfare, hastily
collected such of his troops as were near, and pursued Sheridan. He
fell upon Sheridan's rear and flank at Beaver Dam Station, where a
pause had been made to destroy the railroad, some cars, and
commissary's stores, and drove it before him. The route of the enemy
being unmistakably toward Richmond, Stuart, to protect the capital,
or at least to delay attack, so as to give time to make preparation
for defense, made a _détour_ around Sheridan, and by a forced march
got in front of him, taking position at a place called Yellow Tavern,
about seven or eight miles from Richmond. Here, with the daring and
singleness of purpose which characterized his whole career, he
decided, notwithstanding the great inequality between his force and
that of his foe, to make a stand, and offer persistent resistance to
his advance. The respective strength of the two commands, as given by
Colonel Heros von Borke, chief of General Stuart's staff, was,
Stuart, eleven hundred; Sheridan, eight thousand. While engaged in
this desperate service, General Stuart sent couriers to Richmond to
give notice of the approach of the enemy, so that the defenses might
be manned.
Notwithstanding the great disparity of force, the contest was
obstinate and protracted, and fickle Fortune cheered our men with
several brilliant successes. Stuart, who in many traits resembled the
renowned Murat, like him was always a leader when his cavalry
charged. On this occasion he is represented when he was wounded to
have been quite in advance, to have fired the last load in his
pistol, and to have been shot by a fugitive whom he found cowering
under a fence, and ordered to surrender. The "heavy battalions" at
last prevailed, our line was broken, and our chieftain, though
mortally wounded, still kept in his saddle, invoking his men to
continue the fight.[94] Our gallant chieftain was brought wounded
into Richmond, a noble sacrifice on the altar of duty.
Long accustomed to connect him only with daring exploits and
brilliant successes, there was much surprise and deeper sorrow when
the news spread through the city. Admired as a soldier, loved as a
man, honored as a Christian patriot, to whom duty to his God and his
country was a supreme law, the intense anxiety for his safety made us
all shrink from realizing his imminent danger. When I saw him in his
very last hours, he was so calm, and physically so strong, that I
could not believe that he was dying, until the surgeon, after I had
left his bedside, told me he was bleeding inwardly, and that the end
was near.
Grant's plan of campaign, as now revealed to us, was to continue his
movement against Lee's army, and, if, as experience had taught him,
he should be unable to defeat it and move directly to his objective
point, Richmond, he was to continue his efforts so as to reach the
James River below Richmond, and thus to connect with the array under
General Butler, moving up on the south side of the James. The
topography of the country favored that design. The streams in the
country in which he was operating all trended toward the southeast,
and his change of position was frequently made under cover of them.
Butler, in the mean time, was ordered with the force of his
department, about twenty thousand, reënforced by Gilmer's division of
ten thousand, to move up to City Point, there intrench, and
concentrate all his troops as rapidly as possible. From this base he
was expected to operate so as to destroy the railroad connections
between Richmond and the South. On the 7th of May he telegraphed that
he had "destroyed many miles of railroad, and got a position which,
with proper supplies, we can hold out against the whole of Lee's
army."
At this time Major-General Robert Ransom, as before mentioned, was in
command at Richmond, including Drury's Bluff. His force consisted,
for the defense of both places, of the men serving the stationary or
heavy artillery, and three brigades of infantry--Hunton's at
Chapin's Bluff, and Barton's and Gracie's for field service. To
these, in cases of emergency, the clerks and artisans in the
departments and manufactories, were organized, to be called out as an
auxiliary force when needed for the defense of the capital It was
with this field force that Ransom, as has been related, moved upon
Butler, and drove him from the railroad, the destruction of which he
had so vauntingly announced.
A few days thereafter he again emerged from his cover, but this time
changed his objective point, and, diverging from the south bank of
the James River, moved toward Petersburg, and reached the railroad at
Port Walthal Junction, where he encountered some of General
Beauregard's command, which had been ordered from Charleston, and was
driven from the railroad and turnpike. The troops ordered from
Charleston with General Beauregard had, by May 14th, reached the
vicinity of Drury's Bluff. In connection with the works and
rifle-pits on the bluff, which were to command the river and prevent
the ascent of gunboats, an intrenched line had been constructed on a
ridge about a mile south of the bluff, running across the road from
Richmond to Petersburg. This ridge was higher than the ground on
which the fort was built, and was designed to check an approach of
the enemy from the south, as well as to cover the rear of the fort.
In the afternoon of the 14th I rode down to visit General Beauregard
at his headquarters in the field. Supposing his troops to be on the
line of intrenchment, I passed Major Drury's house to go thither,
when some one by the roadside called to me and told me that the
troops were not on the line of intrenchment, and that General
Beauregard was at the house behind me.
My first question on meeting him was to learn why the intrenchments
were abandoned. He answered that he thought it better to concentrate
his troops. Upon my stating to him that there was nothing then to
prevent Butler from turning his position, he said he would desire
nothing more, as he would then fall upon him, cut him off from his
base, etc.
According to my uniform practice never to do more than to make a
suggestion to a general commanding in the field, the subject was
pressed no further. We then passed to the consideration of the
operations to be undertaken against Butler, who had already advanced
from his base at Bermuda Hundred. I offered, for the purpose of
attacking Butler, to send Major-General Ransom with the field force
he had for the protection of Richmond. In addition to his high
military capacity, his minute knowledge of the country in which they
were to operate made him specially valuable. He reported to General
Beauregard at noon on the 15th, received his orders for the battle
which was to occur the next day, and about 10 P.M. was, with a
division of four brigades and a battery of light artillery, in
position in front of the breastworks. Colonel Dunovant, with a
regiment of cavalry not under Ransom's orders, was to guard the space
between his left and the river, so as to give him information of any
movement in that quarter. General Whiting, with some force, was
holding a defensive position at Petersburg. General Beauregard
proposed that the main part of it should advance and unite with him
in an attack upon Butler wherever he should be found between Drury's
and Petersburg. To this I offered distinct objection, because of the
hazard during a battle of attempting to make a junction of troops
moving from opposite sides of the enemy; and proposed that Whiting's
command should move at night by the Chesterfield road, where they
would not probably be observed by Butler's advance. This march I
supposed they could make so as to arrive at Drury's by or soon after
daylight. The next day being Sunday, they could rest, and, all the
troops being assigned to their positions, could move to make a
concerted attack at daylight on Monday. He spoke of some difficulty
in getting a courier who knew the route and could certainly deliver
the order to General Whiting. Opportunely, a courier arrived from
General Whiting, who had come up the Chesterfield road. He then said
the order would have to be drawn with a great deal of care, and that
he would prepare it as soon as he could. I arose to take leave, and
he courteously walked down the stairs with me, remarking as we went
that he was embarrassed for the want of a good cavalry commander. I
saw in the yard Colonel Chilton, assistant adjutant and
inspector-general, and said, "There is an old cavalry officer who was
trained in my old regiment, the First Dragoons, and who I think will
answer your requirements," Upon his expressing the pleasure it would
give him to have Colonel Chilton, I told him of General Beauregard's
want, and asked him if the service would be agreeable to him. He
readily accepted it, and I left, supposing all the preliminaries
settled. In the next forenoon Colonel Samuel Melton, of the adjutant
and inspector-general's department, called at my residence and
delivered a message from General Beauregard to the effect that he had
decided to order Whiting to move by the direct road from Petersburg,
instead of by the Chesterfield route, and, when I replied that I had
stated my objections to General Beauregard to a movement which gave
the enemy the advantage of being between our forces, he said General
Beauregard had directed him to explain to me that upon a further
examination he found his force sufficient; that his operations,
therefore, did not depend upon making a junction with Whiting.
On Monday morning I rode down to Drury's, where I found that the
enemy had seized our line of intrenchments, it being unoccupied, and
that a severe action had occurred, with serious loss to us before he
could be dislodged. He had crossed the main road to the west,
entering a dense wood, and our troops on the right had moved out and
were closely engaged with him. We drove him back, frustrating the
attempt to turn the extreme right of our line. The day was wearing
away, a part of the force had been withdrawn to the intrenchment, and
there was no sign of purpose to make any immediate movement. General
Beauregard said he was waiting to hear Whiting's guns, and had been
expecting him for some time to approach on the Petersburg road. Soon
after this, the foe in a straggling, disorganized manner, commenced
crossing the road, moving to the east, which indicated a retreat, or
perhaps a purpose to turn our left and attack Fort Drury in rear. He
placed a battery in the main road and threw some shells at our
intrenchment, probably to cover his retiring troops. General Ransom,
in an unpublished report, says that, at the time he received the
order of battle, General Beauregard told him, "As you know the
region, I have given you the moving part of the army, and you will
take the initiative." He further states that at dawn of day he moved
to the south of Kingsland Creek, formed two lines with a short
interval, and at once advanced to the attack. A dense fog suddenly
enveloped him, so as to obscure all distant objects. Moving forward,
the skirmishers were quickly engaged, and the fighting was pressed so
vigorously that by sunrise he had captured a brigade of infantry, a
battery of artillery, and occupied about three quarters of a mile of
the enemy's temporary breastworks, which were strengthened by wire
interwoven among the trees in their front; this was not effected,
however, without considerable loss in killed and wounded, and much
confusion, owing to the denseness of the fog. General Ransom's report
continues:
"Having no ammunition-wagons and requiring replenishment of infantry
cartridges, and knowing that delay would mar the effect of the
success gained, I sent instantly to Beauregard, reporting what had
happened, and asked that Ransom's brigade might come to me at once,
so that I might continue the pressure and make good the advantage
already gained."
He then describes the further delay in getting ammunition, and his
renewal of the request for Ransom's brigade, which he had organized
and formerly commanded, but, instead of which, two small regiments
were sent to him, the timely arrival of which, it is to be gratefully
remembered, enabled him to repulse an advance of the enemy. It would
be neither pleasant nor profitable to dwell on the lost opportunity
for a complete victory, or to recount the possible consequences which
might have flowed from it. On the next morning, our troops moved down
the river road as far as Howlett's, about three or four miles, but
saw no enemy. The "back door" of Richmond was closed, and Butler
"bottled up."
Soon after the affair at Drury's Bluff, General Beauregard addressed
to me a communication, proposing that he should be heavily reinforced
from General Lee's army, so as to enable him to crush Butler in his
intrenchments, and then, with the main body of his own force,
together with a detachment from General Lee's army, that he should
join General Lee, overwhelm Grant, and march to Washington. I knew
that General Lee was then confronting an army vastly superior to his
in numbers, fully equipped, with inexhaustible supplies, and a
persistence in attacking of which sufficient evidence had been given.
I could not therefore expect that General Lee would consent to the
proposition of General Beauregard; but, as a matter of courteous
consideration, his letter was forwarded with the usual formed
endorsement. General Lee's opinion on the case was shown by the
instructions he gave directing General Beauregard to straighten his
line so as to reduce the requisite number of men to hold it, and send
the balance to join the army north of the James.
[Footnote 94: Address of Major H. B. McClellan before Army of Northern
Virginia Association.]