May 18, 1864---"Bloody Spotsylvania"; The Battle of Harris' Farm; The Gold Hoax

MAY 18, 1864: 

The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House enters its eleventh day. With the weather cleared and the ground dry enough to traverse, again Ulysses S. Grant throws thousands of troops against Laurel Hill. Although Lee has withdrawn from the salient known as The Muleshoe, and although Grant has driven the Confederates from The Bloody Angle and the other outlying defensive lines, this time Grant tries to break through Lee’s inner defenses on Laurel Hill, only to face massed cannons. 

A contemporary Confederate report stated dryly: “Very little musketry was used in this engagement, for the reason that the enemy did not come near enough our lines.” 

1,250 Union men are killed in the assault, most torn to pieces by heavy ordnance. This day of slaughter, amazingly, has no name of its own in history, but gave a name to the field of battle: “Bloody Spotsylvania.” 

The Battle of Harris' Farm: 

Even as the frontal assault at Laurel Hill rages, General Grant begins to move troops around the Confederate right flank, hoping to interpose Union forces between Lee and Richmond. A line of New York infantry crosses the Ni River, only to find a Confederate battery on the far bank. A roaring battle commences. The Rebel battery is immobilized on wet ground, and the New Yorkers, despite facing down cannons, are surprisingly fierce. 

Union troops and cannons keep arriving en masse, and soon the banks of the Ni are a bare-blasted no-man’s land. Lee begins to fear that the battle may turn against him, leaving the road to Richmond in Union hands. He orders his troops to disengage from battling the Federals. Again he moves into a blocking position between Grant and Richmond. 

Even as Grant and Lee and Sherman and Johnston are locked in vicious combat at opposite ends of the Eastern Theatre, a financial panic grips the nation when two New York City newspapers, the New York World and the New York Journal of Commerce, each publish the story that President Abraham Lincoln has issued a proclamation conscripting 400,000 more men into the Union army. Given the reports from wholesale carnage coming from the battlefields the Northern public immediately assumes that this means that the war is not going well for the Union, and Wall Street reacts as might be expected: Stocks go into free fall, and investors begin buying gold, which balloons in value more than 10% within a few hours. 

 

It turns out that the story is a hoax, cooked up by Joseph Howard Jr., the City Editor of the anti-Lincoln Brooklyn Eagle, who has invented a fake Associated Press dispatch about the President’s call for more troops. Not unsurprisingly, Howard has also just recently invested heavily in specie, and makes a killing in just a few hours. 

Howard is arrested on May 22nd, and spends three months in prison. He is released on August 22, 1864. With perfect irony, the very day Howard is released, President Lincoln issues a call for 500,000 more soldiers.

May 17, 1864---The Battle of Adairsville, Georgia

MAY 17, 1864:

The Battle of Adairsville, Georgia. William Tecumseh Sherman’s inexorable blue juggernaut rolls slowly southward toward Atlanta. General Joseph E. Johnston C.S.A. holds a war council with his subordinate commanders, Leonidas Polk and John Bell Hood, who both convince a skeptical Johnston that the Union army is too strong to be resisted. Units of the Confederate Army of Tennessee engage Union troops in a delaying action while the bulk of the Rebel force withdraws across the Etowah River toward Rome, Georgia. Casualties are light, but the South is giving ground perhaps unnecessarily.

May 16, 1864---The Battle of Drewry's Bluff; The Battle of Proctor's Creek

MAY 16, 1864: 

The Battle of Drewry’s Bluff (The Battle of Fort Darling):

The ironclads U.S.S. MONITOR and U.S.S. GALENA sail up the James River toward Richmond, testing the outer defenses of the city. The river is chock-full of obstructions, and Fort Darling overlooks the river bank about five miles from the city. After exchanging fire with the fort, the two ships turn about. 

 

The Battle of Proctor’s Creek:

As the MONITOR and the GALENA steam upriver on the James, General Benjamin Butler U.S.A. leads some 30,000 men from his base in The Bermuda Hundred against 18,000 Confederates in the region, testing Richmond’s defenses by land. In fact, Drewry's Bluff and Proctor's Creek are sometimes counted as a single action. 

Butler is overcautious, and this allows General P.G.T. Beauregard C.S.A. to concentrate his forces on Butler’s right flank, which begins to cave in. Lost in a heavy fog, Butler decides he cannot risk his men, and withdraws back to The Bermuda Hundred. There were 6,600 casualties overall, mostly Union men. 

Like Sigel in the west, Butler has proven himself timid in the east. Grant, who is battling toe-to-toe with Lee in the center, cannot count on any distraction of Confederate forces from the flanks.

May 15, 1864---The Battle of New Market

MAY 15, 1864: 

The Battle of New Market: 

On the other side of the Blue Ridge Mountains from Spotsylvania Court House, the Shenandoah Valley erupts into battle. 

A Union army of 10,000 led by General Franz Sigel attempts to take Staunton, Virginia. 

Among the barely 4,000 Confederates facing Sigel are 250 cadets of the Virginia Military Institute (V.M.I.). Some are 15 year old boys, but the Confederacy is that pressed for manpower. 

Daringly, the Confederate Commander, former U.S. Vice-President and Presidential hopeful John C. Breckinridge decides to attack Sigel’s force which is strung out along the New Market Road. His daring almost costs him the day, as his men are mown down. 

With no reserves left, he throws the V.M.I. cadets into the battle line. The boys charge across the open ground which is soaked due to the recent heavy rains. Many of the boys lose their shoes in the muck, but whether it is a function of their brazenness and bravery, or whether the Union troops are reluctant to shoot at boys, or are simply amazed at being attacked by children, the cadets manage to storm the Union line. 

Sigel loses 96 killed, 520 wounded, and 225 missing in the battle, and withdraws from the Valley, leaving it in Rebel hands and frustrating part of Grant’s grand strategy for this point in the war. Breckenridge loses 43 killed, 474 wounded, and 3 missing, including ten cadets killed. 

"The Bonnie Blue Flag" from THE HORSE SOLDIERS (1959)

May 14, 1864---The Battle of Resaca, Georgia

MAY 14, 1864: 

While the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse rages in its seventh day and some men are spared as a hard rain falls in Virginia, General William Tecumseh Sherman initiates the Campaign for Atlanta with an attack on Resaca, Georgia. 

Resaca is an important telegraph hub, and Sherman has determined that it will be the pivot around which he turns his army south. The Union suffers 4,000 casualties out of a total force of almost 100,000. The Confederacy suffers 3,000 casualties out of a total of 60,000, and is unable to halt Sherman’s maneuver.