March 31, 1865---The Battle of White Oak Road

MARCH 31, 1865:      

The Battle of White Oak Road (The Battle of Hatcher’s Run; The Battle of Gravelly Run; The Battle of Boydton Plank Road):  

With his forces now in place, Robert E. Lee is prepared to meet the Federal threat to his right flank.

The weather continues to be terrible; however, Ulysses S. Grant has chosen to heed the advice of General Philip Sheridan and press forward with the Union’s Spring Offensive despite the unceasing downpour. Grant later avers that he did not want the Union public to lose heart in the face of a possible cancellation of the Offensive. 

The fact that Grant is so confident of victory in any action under such awful conditions cannot help but undermine Robert E. Lee’s own confidence. Lee knows that he will have to give up Richmond and Petersburg, but until yesterday he spoke of the military evacuation as occurring in a matter of weeks. But the aggression being demonstrated by the Federal command has him revising his estimate downward to a matter of days. 

The Battle of White Oak Road began with a thrust by General Philp Sheridan U.S.A.’s forces at General George Pickett’s lines near Dinwiddie Court House. So engaged, Pickett’s men were unavailable as reserves at White Oak Road. Although Pickett’s men stalled Sheridan’s advance, Sheridan’s overwhelming numbers alarmed Pickett, who decided to fall back toward Five Forks.

While Sheridan’s men and Pickett’s men grappled, General Gouvernor K. Warren U.S.A. hurled his Fifth Corps against the Confederate emplacements along White Oak Road. Warren moved cautiously --- too cautiously for his commander Sheridan’s liking --- and his 20,000-man force was battered by Major General Bushrod Johnson C.S.A.’s 8,000 defenders, being turned back at several places along the line. 

General Grant said of Warren:

I was so much dissatisfied with Warren’s dilatory movements in the battle of White Oak Road . . .  very much afraid that at the last moment he would fail . . . I had . . . discovered a defect which was beyond his control . . . He could see every danger at a glance before he had encountered it. 

This was a conflict of personalities, not a matter of professional competence. Had McClellan been General-in-Chief, Warren probably would have gotten a medal for his actions at White Oak Road, but he was not the man for Grant, or for Sheridan, both highly aggressive commanders. Sheridan was to relieve Warren of command before the end of the week, “for the good of the service,” and he was busted to Brigadier. A Court of Inquiry convened in 1879 found that Warren had acted appropriately at White Oak Road and restored him to rank. 

The irony of course is that both Warren and Sheridan were stalled by the rebels on this day. And in the end, the overcautious Warren did in fact regroup his men and rally them. He failed, however, to cut the road or dislodge the Southern troops from White Oak Road. At best, the battle is a draw. 

General Gouvernor K. Warren U.S.A.

March 30, 1865---Goop

MARCH 30, 1865:    

The rain pours down in sheets over Petersburg. 

Little actual fighting occurs this day. Men who want to fight are frustrated when wet powder will not ignite, when damp cartridges misfire. The roads have turned to slow moving rivers of mud and the fields of Virginia are sodden, turning the grainy soil to quicksand. Wagons sink into the ooze up to their axles. Men flop around like spastic marionettes as they struggle to walk. Horses lose their balance, breaking legs as they careen over in the muck. Riders leap from saddles, sometimes to safety, sometimes breaking ankles as they get caught up in stirrups, sometimes being crushed under the weight of their falling mounts, sometimes ending up coated in thick clinging mud. At their respective headquarters, Grant fumes and Lee stews.  The Union General is convinced that one more push may win the war. The Confederate General is convinced he can fight his way out of the trap. 

Mother Nature has given the Confederacy one more day of grace, but Lee can accomplish nothing much with it. Instead, by the light of an oil lamp --- the day is too dim to see well --- he scratches out orders for General Longstreet and General Pickett, his old Gettysburg warhorses, to move their troops away from Richmond to bolster the Confederate lines at Petersburg. Lee knows he is robbing Peter to pay Paul. He has always managed to balance his books before, and he is hoping he will this time too. In response to these orders, weary troops in heavy wet gray wool begin shuffling southward. 

Grant’s men dig in the goop, like moles. If they can extend their lines --- hawsers of manpower ---  just far enough, Lee’s increasingly gossamer-thin lines will snap. 

For everyone, it is frustrating and slow going. The rain pounds down, muffling other sounds. Men begin asking each other when the gunboats will arrive. They begin asking for Admiral Noah to take command.

At 11:00 A.M., Ulysses S. Grant has had enough. He sends an order to Philip Sheridan to abandon the village of Dinwiddie Court House. The Spring Offensive is being postponed. 

At 3:00 P.M., Sheridan himself, windblown and soaked to the skin, almost unrecognizable under a layer of dirt and mud comes pounding up to Grant’s door on Rienzi. While the horse is stabled, the bandy-legged long-armed troglodytish cavalryman confers with his commander. Sheridan refuses to hold back: “I’ll corduroy every road, and every mile of them from here to Dinwiddie Court House!” he insists. “I’m ready to move out tomorrow and go smashing things, General!”

Grant smiles --- and rescinds his orders. The war is on again. 

The Richmond Daily Dispatch fumes at the Yankees, reviling them for Sherman’s depredations on the March; at the same time, the Daily Dispatch tries to justify the “Confederate Army of New York’s” attempt to burn the city on the night after the Union’s Thanksgiving Day. 

Their editorial reads in part:

 . . . If any one ever doubted the appropriateness of the title once bestowed upon the [New York] Herald by a New York contemporary of "the Satanic Press," let him read the following:

‘South Carolina is honestly hated by the whole North as the prime mover of secession . . .  the proudest spirit in the Southern oligarchy, that, in its contemptible pride, had the impudence to look upon . . . the better people of the North as beneath her . . . Hence, the Northern people can see her cities burn with much less concern than they would feel if those terrible blows fell upon any other people . . . When soldiers burn cities, it is, ordinarily, a bad sign for the discipline of the army . . .  but in the present case we know that the burning of cities and farms is . . .  evidence that  . . . the men . . .  feel the unconquerable national hate for that pestilent people who have caused all this trouble. Why should they withhold their hands? South Carolina never withheld hers . . . Through Georgia the army was manageable, and respected the property and the people . . . So soon as it touched the North Carolina line it was again a disciplined force; but in all the space between, across the whole of South Carolina, it was a scourge, inflicting the wild and passionate vengeance of the people who sent it.’

In the same number of the Herald which contains the above, we have the finding of a military commission in the case of Captain R. C. Kennedy, an alleged Confederate spy, charged with setting fire to "Barnum's Museum" and one of the "down- town" hotels, and sentenced to be hung therefore. The Court says:

‘The attempt to set fire to the city of New York is one of the greatest atrocities of the age. There is nothing in the annals of barbarism which evinces greater vindictiveness. It was not a mere attempt to destroy the city, but to set fire to crowded hotels and places of public resort, in order to secure the greatest possible destruction of human life . . . In all the buildings fired, not only non-combatant men, but women and children, were congregated in great numbers; and nothing but the most diabolical spirit of revenge could have impelled the incendiaries to acts so revolting.’

Compare the finding of the Court with the above extract from the Herald --- Comment is unnecessary. "The burning of Southern cities" is a matter of congratulation; of Northern cities, "the greatest atrocities of the age," and deserving the gallows [Kennedy the conspirator was hanged in New York on March 25^th, 1865]. Would the Court have accepted in Kennedy's defence the Herald's plea for Sherman's soldiers; an "unconquerable national hate for the pestilent people who have caused all this trouble."

March 29, 1865---The Battle of Lewis' Farm

MARCH 29, 1865:   

The Battle of Lewis’ Farm     (The Battle of The Quaker Road):        

What ultimately became known as the Appomattox Campaign started in chilly rain and cold mud as Ulysses S. Grant U.S.A.’s forces began moving south as if to flank the Confederate lines south of the Appomattox River. 

This was not an unusual gambit. Grant had slowly been extending his lines all through the fall and winter, forcing Robert E. Lee to extend his lines. In the process, Lee’s lines had become increasingly attenuated. Lee had not been helped by the massive desertions which thinned Confederate ranks all winter. Although desertions had levelled off in early March, the increasingly warm weather had put men in mind of planting season, and in the last nine days of March Lee lost 1,100 men who simply disappeared from the ranks. The disaster at Fort Stedman cost Lee 5,000 men, and in the days afterward other men, unwilling to die in a seemingly hopeless cause, had given up. Lee has had to scrape the hospitals for walking wounded, the saloons for drunks, and the houses of ill fame for officers to bolster his losses as much as he can. The Richmond Garrison, a collection of 5,000 mailmen, garbage collectors, tax men, and clerks most of whom are gun owners (enough of a qualification to go to war in March 1865), has filled the numerical need for warm bodies if not the practical need for trained soldiers. What few city services have been functioning in Richmond grind to a halt when the Garrison is called up. The prevailing civilian attitude toward the war is summed up by the Editor of the Richmond Whig, who grouses in print, “If this is not trifling with the people we don’t know what is.”    

As things develop, it quickly becomes evident that this is not another one of Grant’s rather blithe movements within his own lines. No. The Confederates in their entrenchments report a large force --- 17,000 men in all --- moving along the Quaker Road. Among the forces is the Union Fifth Corps, and within hours it is followed by the Union Second Corps. 

The Confederates do exactly what Grant is hoping for. They move into a position to block Union access to the Boydton Plank Road. Fighting erupts on the grounds of the Lewis family’s farm. The fighting waxes hot, and Brigadier General Joshua L. Chamberlain U.S.A., the hero of Little Round Top at Gettysburg is shot from his horse and wounded. He also loses his hat with its “U.S.” insignia. When a number of Confederate soldiers demand his surrender, the mud-spattered quick-thinking Chamberlain, who is wearing an old blue greatcoat faded to gray, orders them to join him in his attack on the Union lines. Thinking they have shot at one of their own officers, the embarrassed Confederates rally behind him, and follow Chamberlain, who leads them --- right into captivity.

The battle rolls back and forth across the area of the Lewis Farm. Finally, a large body of Union reserves takes the field. Badly outnumbered, the Confederates retreat back to their own lines. Both sides lose about 400 men each. 

The battle ends in a draw, but the Confederates are left in a weakened position. With Rebel forces distracted by the fighting Philip Sheridan is able to seize the town of Dinwiddie Court House. The Union seizes the crossroads of the Boydton Plank Road and the Quaker Road. In order to defend, Lee is forced to further extend his lines. 

Grant is quietly satisfied. Although the Confederates are back in their trenches, the sounds of shovels sucking at gooey mud indicates that they are enlarging their entrenchments and extending their lines. 

Lee is sour and angry after the Battle of Lewis’ Farm. Upset at the ease with which the Union has battered his lines, he spends the day shuffling and repositioning units like a Three Card Monty dealer. Although he finally gets his men into a satisfactory defensive position, the men are tired and bedraggled from all their moving about in the mud and rain. The weather, which has been poor for days, is absolutely filthy as darkness falls. There is a downpour that lasts the night and continues on into the next day.