It was later said that Confederate infantrymen patted the smoking tubes of the guns with affection. Sign up for our quarterly email series highlighting the environmental benefits of battlefield preservation. On learning of this movement, Lee decided to thrust his army toward Grant along three roads that ran parallel to the Rapidan. The next morning — May 10 — Confederates under Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Lee's was about 53,000; for the first time in the campaign he received sizable reinforcements, including three of the four brigades in Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett's division (about 6,000 men) from the James River defenses and two brigades (2,500 men) of Maj. Gen. John C. B… During the night, Wright’s corps headed for the intersection; orders went out for Smith to march that way as well; and Lee directed Anderson to start south and join Hoke. Trevilian Station Station Battlefield, Virginia. Grant’s decision to cross the James River and move southward toward Petersburg—a key rail center 20 miles south of Richmond—effectively ended the Overland Campaign. The Spindle Farm became a slaughter pen, as Confederates raked the advancing Union line with concentrated fire, bringing Warren’s offensive up short. By afternoon on May 9, the armies were digging in; Grant’s lines oriented south toward Spotsylvania Court House and Lee’s troops looking north, barring the Union advance. All day, the Rebels prepared for the expected Union assault. Going on the offensive, the Confederates assailed Hancock’s flank, drove the Federals back to the Brock Road and squeezed in two spirited attacks before dark. Meade was responsible for overseeing the assault but resented his subordinate position and thoroughly disapproved of Grant’s hard-hitting tactics. Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park, Saunders Field, Wilderness Battlefield, Virginia. The Overland Campaign: The Battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, North Anna, and Cold Harbor (English Edition) eBook: Charles River Editors: Amazon.de: Kindle-Shop The answer lies in how one defines winning. Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, general-in-chief of all Union armies, directed the actions … Lee quickly marched to interpose between Grant and Richmond. An asterisk (*) indicates the number includes missing and captured, as well as killed and wounded. Attacking Warren’s corps, Hill’s troops were overwhelmed and retired to the Virginia Central Railroad. Stay up-to-date on the Trust's battlefield preservation efforts, travel tips, upcoming events, history content and more. And while each army received substantial reinforcements during the campaign, Grant’s capacity to augment his force was vastly greater than Lee’s. Union cavalry rode toward Charlottesville, aiming to wreck the Virginia Central Railroad, and Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley headed toward Lynchburg, terminus of the James River Canal. It helped support the notion that Lee was only defeated by superior numbers, not by good generalship. The First American President: Setting the Precedent, Help Save 110 Acres at Three Civil War Battlefields, Preserve 108 Acres of the Most Important Unprotected Battlefield Land, Kentuckians: Support Battlefield Preservation Legislation, Virginians: Support Battlefield Preservation Legislation. This was about 1/6 of each army. But once again, slipshod coordination thwarted his plan. May 22 witnessed Lee’s exhausted troops cross the North Anna and encamp south of the river, along the Virginia Central Railroad. On Telegraph Road, Burnside ventured south but was halted by Ewell’s defenses. The Rebel army, it seemed, was a depleted force, ripe for the plucking. He expressed his discontent by doing little; the record reveals no efforts to reconnoiter, coordinate the corps or tend to the things that diligent generals ordinarily do before sending troops against fortified lines. It was the third-bloodiest battle of the war in terms of total casualties. President Abraham Lincoln realized that if he was going to remain in office and reunify the nation, he needed victories and he needed them quickly. Although the Federals had moved deep into Virginia and were closing in on Richmond, the Overland Campaign had cost the Union around 40,000 total casualties in the month, out of an army of about 102,000 men. In Lee's Army during the Overland Campaign, Alfred C. Young III makes a significant contribution to that study by providing for the first time accurate information regarding the Confederate side throughout the conflict. Each of these battles is a piece in the puzzle of the larger strategies that characterized the final year of the war. Hoping to finally strike a killing blow, Grant hurried Hancock’s corps toward Cold Harbor. The Overland Campaign was a series of battles in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. For the next two weeks, the armies dueled along the Spotsylvania front. Grant planned a three-pronged attack in Virginia. The American Battlefield Trust is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. May 4, 1864, saw the Army of the Potomac crossing the Rapidan into the Wilderness, 20 miles downriver from Lee. Deploying Sedgwick’s Corps on Warren’s left flank, Meade ordered another attack near sundown. A few miles west, near Wilderness Tavern, stood Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren’s V Corps, and immediately north of Warren’s encampments rose smoke from fires kindled by Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick’s VI Corps. Thrust was assuming a decidedly defensive tone focused irresistible force against his wily opponent to Spotsylvania Court House the. 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