May 26, 1864---The Battle of The North Anna River (Day Four)

MAY 26, 1864:            

The Battle of The North Anna River (Day Four):          

After a morning of inaction, Ulysses S. Grant decides that there is nothing more he wants along the banks of the North Anna River, and he gives his army the order to move south toward Richmond.  As The Army of The Potomac begins to pull up stakes so, perforce, must The Army of Northern Virginia. Lee has no choice but to once again move into a blocking position between Grant and Richmond. And so, the Battle of The North Anna River ends. Of all the major battles of the Overland Campaign, the Battle of The North Anna River is the least bloody, with a total of about 5,000 casualties (1,000 dead) divided equally.

Grant is correct when he says that a “battle with [the Confederates] outside of intrenchments cannot be had. Our men feel that they have gained the morale over the enemy.” From this point forward, Lee’s men will fight only from fixed positions, and Confederate morale is steadily eroding. But Grant, misinterpreting Lee’s inaction at the North Anna River as a loss of esprit de corps, has been lulled into thinking that the enemy is nearly defeated. The Army of Northern Virginia is far from beaten, as Grant will soon discover to his everlasting regret.   

Exact conditions in The Army of Northern Virginia circa May 1864 are hard to assess from 150 years in the future; records are incomplete, perhaps never kept, perhaps lost, perhaps destroyed. What can be ascertained is that the Confederate Army is exhausted after a month of outrunning the Union Army. Food stocks are far poorer than those of the Union Army; the Confederate soldier is living on about half the calories of his Union counterpart. Supplies and ammunition are becoming harder to come by. Lee must beg, borrow, and steal from Commands in other theatres in order to keep his men in fighting trim. Ultimately, this pattern of “borrowing from Peter to pay Paul” will undo the entire military structure of the Confederacy.  But, in the meanwhile, the relative quiet of the Battle of The North Anna River has allowed the Southerners to rest, eat better meals, and replace or repair worn out gear. Lee has received supplies, food, and fresh troops from P.G.T. Beauregard, Joseph E. Johnston, and other Confederate field commanders, not as many or as much as he needs, but enough to continue the fight. Lee is probably leading a force of about 50,000 men after the Battle of The North Anna River. He is outnumbered 2-to-1, but his fighting men still have their moxie. 

 In Georgia, after the defeat at New Hope Church, Sherman shrugs, and continues toward Atlanta. The two great cities still in Confederate hands have been marked for the taking.

The United States Congress creates the Territory of Montana from part of the Idaho Territory.

May 25, 1864---The Battle of The North Anna River (Day Three); The Battle of New Hope Church

MAY 25, 1864:            

 The Battle of The North Anna River  (Day Three):         

As the sun rises in Virginia, the Army of Northern Virginia beholds a sight never seen before. Overnight, the Army of The Potomac has entrenched itself in a line running parallel to the Confederate position. The Springtime banks of the North Anna River presage the green fields of France in another Great War yet to be fought 2,000 miles away across a wide ocean fifty years in the future.

It is a strange day of warfare. Neither side seems to know how to conduct the battle from their fixed positions. Robert E. Lee is still ill, and his only orders have been to hold the line. Ulysses S. Grant does not want to rush the Rebel works in a replay of Spotsylvania, and so his orders are essentially the same:  To hold the line.  Small arms fire crackles intermittently across the open and empty field, a no-man’s land, between the lines. Occasionally, a section of the line erupts into an exchange of fire when the opponents spot movement in their dopplegangered earthworks, but these firefights start suddenly and end suddenly, without pattern or real purpose.

In the late afternoon, the Union surprises the Confederacy by cutting the Virginia Central Railroad, the Rebels’ main supply line; Lee’s army has been receiving supplies and reinforcements by train throughout the battle. As it turns out, the cutting of the rail line means little, so late in the battle. 

In Georgia, William T. Sherman’s Army of The Mississippi engages with Joseph E. Johnston’s Army of Tennessee at New Hope Church. The Union attack over difficult terrain is thwarted, and the Union suffers 1,600 casualties. The Confederacy suffers 350.

May 24, 1864---The Battle of The North Anna River (Day Two); The Battle of Wilson's Wharf

MAY 24, 1864:             

The Battle of The North Anna River  (Day Two):                     

Union troops cross the North Anna River in force without encountering resistance. The Confederates fall back. Although Grant and his commanders assume this is a retreat, the Army of Northern Virginia is only taking up its positions behind the entrenchments and earthworks they spent the night preparing.

The day nearly goes South when the hard-drinking Brigadier General James H. Ledlie U.S.A., who has chosen today to go on a ferocious bender, decides to take on the entire western flank of the Hog Snout (nine brigades under General A.P. Hill, C.S.A.) with his single brigade.  Although Ledlie is ordered not to attack, he orders an infantry charge against a line of Confederate cannons, regardless. His men, charging into the mouths of cannons, wisely hit the deck. Although the cannon shot passes over them, the massed infantry in the trenches behind the cannons begins firing at will. Fortunately for the Union men, a violent thunderstorm comes up, and soaks everybody and everything, including Confederate powder. The shooting on that flank stops suddenly, and the men crawl back to safety, most none the worse for wear, but muddy. Unbelievably enough, the brigade receives a commendation for gallantry (which they deserve) and Ledlie is promoted to a Divisional Command (which he does not deserve). He is to become historically notorious in late July for his actions during The Battle of The Crater.

Elsewhere on the field, the Union charges headlong into the entrenchments, but the rain forces a halt to the attack. A few men use bayonets, but most are just glad to get out of the rain. The battle goes on as the weather dries, but in fits and starts. Once Grant receives Intelligence that the apex of the arrowhead or the “hog snout” is the strongest position held by Lee, he exults, much to the surprise of his subordinates.  

Grant realizes that Lee is offering him another Muleshoe, another heavily fortified position to attack, another Bloody Angle. Grant declines Lee’s invitation. Despite seeing Gray troops on the field, Grant correctly ascertains that Lee has no intention of attacking The Army of The Potomac. Grant writes:

Lee's army is really whipped. The prisoners we now take show it, and the actions of his Army show it unmistakably. A battle with them outside of intrenchments cannot be had. Our men feel that they have gained the morale over the enemy, and attack him with confidence. I may be mistaken but I feel that our success over Lee's army is already assured.

The Army of Northern Virginia has a serious problem, though Grant cannot know it. Lee, after weeks of stressful campaigning, is suddenly struck down by The Old Soldier’s Disease, a very bad case of touristas. Too sick to effectively run the battle himself, Lee has no one of sufficient mettle to do so in his stead. Jackson is now long dead, Stuart more recently so; Longstreet is absent, recovering from wounds.

With no one to run the battle, the Southerners are told simply to hold the line, even as Grant refuses to rush the line.  The day ends inconclusively.  

The Battle of Wilson’s Wharf:          

Benjamin Butler’s Army of The James leaves its base at The Bermuda Hundred to tangle with flank elements of The Army of Northern Virginia. It is a Union victory, albeit a small one. However, it marks the first time that The Army of Northern Virginia faces United States Colored Troops in battle. To be defeated by “Colored” troops is so psychologically difficult for the Southerners to bear that postwar memoirists invent a story of Union gunboats shelling their position in order to force their defeat. However, the Union has no record of gunboats being assigned to the operation. Nor does any Union veteran recall gunboats being present. 

May 23, 1864---The Battle of The North Anna River (Day One)

MAY 23, 1864: 

The Battle of The North Anna River (Day One): 

 

The Battle of The North Anna River is, like the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, more a three day long running series of area engagements than a single concentrated battle. 

On the morning of May 23rd Union troops began to assemble at Mt. Carmel Church several hundred yards north of the North Anna River. The assemblage is chaotic, and it takes several hours to sort out unit from unit. 

General Winfield Scott Hancock’s men move eastward along Telegraph Road (present-day U.S. 1) toward the Chesterfield Bridge planning to cross the river. General Gouvernor K. Warren’s men move westward toward Jericho Mills Ford, also planning on fording the river. 

The Battle of The Chesterfield Bridge: Overlooking the Telegraph Road, the Confederates have thrown up a dirt earthwork, known to history as Henagan’s Redoubt. As Hancock approaches the Chesterfield Bridge, his troops begin to take fire from the Redoubt. Union artillery responds in force. By chance, several cannonballs strike Robert E. Lee’s temporary HQ which is nearby. Lee is miraculously uninjured even though canister shot blows holes in the wall against which he is standing. The battle at Chesterfield Bridge continues all day, until Henagan’s Redoubt is overrun by the Union. Although the Confederates flee across the bridge the Union command decides to dig in for the night just north of the crossing. 

The Battle of Jericho Mills Ford: The crossing at Jericho Mills Ford is accomplished without a shot being fired, but as the Union moves southward, it is hit hard by South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia units moving in impressively synchronous order. Warren’s line threatens to break at Jericho Mills, but, once again, Union artillery comes into play, and the troops from Dixie are forced to fall back. 

The Hog Snout Line: By evening, the Union is holding the northern bank of the North Anna River and has a beachhead on the south bank. Lee, the wise combat engineer, realizes that he cannot hold along the line. Instead, he orders his engineers to devise a five mile line of earthworks on the south side of the North Anna River. Shaped like an arrowhead, what becomes known as the “hog snout line” has its apex at Ox Ford, the only defensible river crossing. Warren’s forces at Jericho Mills Ford will run afoul of the west wing on the arrowhead, while Hancock’s forces at Chesterfield Bridge will run afoul of the right wing. Of course, the Union army could just as easily flank and avoid the Confederate army with reasonable effort, but Lee is counting on Grant to be pugnacious.

May 22, 1864---The Red River Campaign is over

MAY 22, 1864:

Robert E. Lee has one advantage over Ulysses S. Grant and it is that the smaller, more compact, Army of Northern Virginia can move more quickly than the behemoth that is The Army of The Potomac, especially on its home ground. While it has thus far been Grant who has disengaged first and moved first during every step of the Overland Campaign, Lee always discovers where he is going and manages to get there first. And so it is today, as units of the Southern army assemble along the bank of the North Anna River.

Grant, in transit, has a few moments to attend to military housekeeping, and so he issues orders officially bringing the Union’s Red River Campaign to an end. In three months of fighting the Union has accomplished precisely none of its objectives in the Campaign, the major ones being the restoration of all of Arkansas and Louisiana to the Union. A vast combined Army-Navy undertaking, the Red River Campaign has descended from an offensive to merely being offensive.

Small, ill-equipped, but fast-moving Confederate units have been able to harry the large, better-equipped Union forces all during the Campaign. As a result the Union troops have returned to their starting points, neither defeated nor victorious, but merely brought to a standstill. All in all, the Campaign has degenerated into a huge waste of materiel and lives.

Grant might be able to damn his uncertain commanders, but he is experiencing the same unyielding resistance in Virginia. Unlike all his subordinates though, Grant understands that the Civil War is a war of attrition --- engage the enemy, stay engaged, and wear them down slowly but surely with the inevitability of gravity. The cost is high, Grant admits, but the Confederacy is gobbling its seed corn to continue the fight. It is just a matter of time.

Still, Grant is aware that the Campaign in the Western Theatre is good and finally over when he reads reports of the Battles of Mansura, Louisiana (May 16) and Yellow Bayou, Texas (May 18). In both battles neither side recorded any casualties. A Civil War battle without casualties is a rare blessing indeed; but to have two consecutive battles without casualties in the same Campaign is a sign that the fight has gone out of both friend and foe. In modern parlance, they could have stayed home and phoned it in.

Reading these field reports, Grant ends the Campaign. Portions of Louisiana and Arkansas will remain in rebel hands for the balance of the war. This is regrettable, but Lieutenant General U.S. Grant knows two things: One, that victory in the East will mean victory, and two, that he will need those troops and ships to obtain that victory. The Red River Campaign is over.