- 05 Feb 2023 14:05
#15263933
February 5, Sunday
Even as the latest attempt at a negotiated peace has come to naught, the fighting in Virginia has been going on. The winter has been unusually harsh—rain and mud alternating with snow and ice—yet Grant dares not wait until spring to get his men on the move. His objective isn’t merely to take Petersburg and Richmond, but to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia. “I was afraid, every morning,” he will later admit, “that I would awake from my sleep to hear that Lee had gone, and that nothing was left but a picket line.” If Lee can escape into the western mountains, the war might go on for months.
One way to fix Lee in position is to keep him occupied; Grant therefore has scheduled an offensive operation to begin today. The move is also meant to continue the slow encirclement of Lee’s army, which has been Grant’s strategy for the past nine months, and of restricting even more the flow of supplies to the besieged Confederates. By the end of last October, the Federals had extended the left flank of their line to within three miles of Boydton Plank Road, about two miles west of the Weldon Railroad and ten miles southwest of Petersburg. The Confederates, desperate to shield the Southside Railroad—their last link to the West and South—have thrown up an additional seven miles of fortifications on a line that bends southwestward to Hatcher’s Run, then to the northwest, parallel to the stream and across the Boydton Plank Road. Grant believes that the Boydton road is being used heavily by enemy wagon trains carrying supplies north from the interrupted Weldon Railroad. He has sent Colonel J. Irvin Gregg’s cavalry division southwest to Dinwiddie Court House—on the plank road six miles southwest of the Confederate line—to intercept and destroy as much of the traffic as he can.
Following Grant’s directive, General Meade, commanding the Army of the Potomac, orders Major General Gouverneur K. Warren to place his V Corps a few miles east of Dinwiddie to support Gregg. And to prevent the Confederates from cutting off Gregg and V Corps, two divisions of Major General Andrew A. Humphrey’s II Corps move beyond the entrenched Federal left and threaten the Confederate line in the vicinity of Hatcher’s Run. The Federals use the Vaughn road, a thoroughfare that runs west from the Weldon Railroad to Dinwiddie Court House. Meade has no plans to involve his infantry, but Lee doesn’t know that. When he learns of the Federal movements, Lee fears for the safety of the Southside Railroad, which runs from Petersburg west to Lynchburg and connects with the Richmond & Danville to North Carolina. Lee has good reason to worry: A full-scale assault over the same ground in October was stopped only after savage fighting.
Today, in icy weather, the Federal infantry divisions reach their new positions and Gregg’s men gallop onto Boydton Plank Road. They find it virtually deserted. Grant has been misled by faulty intelligence, and Gregg captures only a few wagons and a handful of prisoners. Private James L. Bowen, from Massachusetts, will recall his regiment marching and countermarching for hours on the narrow, frozen roads. Then the word comes to dig in, and the men set to work constructing rifle pits. It is, Bowen will say, a task, “which they had acquired the faculty for doing with great rapidity.” Large trees are cut down, the trunks trimmed and rolled into place, while other squads in the detail very quickly throw against them an embankment of earth sufficient to resist even cannonshot. Then a “head-log” is put in position and the work is complete. All along the Federal line, thousands of men are doing the same.
Lee in the meantime has reinforced A.P. Hill’s corps on the right with two divisions from John Gordon’s corps, which is next in line. In midafternoon, divisions commanded by Major General Henry Heth and Brigadier General Clement A. Evans move south toward Hatcher’s Run, with instructions to engage the nearest Federals. For some time, the men of Brigadier General Thomas A. Smyth’s II Corps division has watched the Confederates forming in front of them as they hasten to complete their barricades. At 3:45 pm Confederate artillery breaks the stillness of the frigid woods, and as the shells crash into the Federal works, the battle lines of Heth and Evans advance. Evans drives straight ahead; Heth moves toward open ground to the right of the Federal line, hoping to flank Smyth and draw him out of his entrenchments. But the Confederates find their way blocked by a Federal brigade commanded by Colonel Robert D. McAllister, and after a sharp exchange, both Heth and Evans fall back to their own line.
Impressed by the enemy’s strength, the Federals concentrate along Hatcher’s Run, and Meade orders in substantial reinforcements: Brigadier General Frank Wheaton’s division from VI Corps and Brigadier General John F. Hartranft’s division from IX Corps.
In South Carolina there is skirmishing at Duncanville and Combahee Ferry, as Sherman’s four corps continue crossing the various streams and swamps of the southern part of the state. The hamlets of the southern part of South Carolina are the first to feel the fury of Sherman’s invasion. Hardeeville, just across the Savannah, was burned to the ground. it could not have been a very handsome place to begin with, remarks Sergeant Bull of New York, but “now it can hardly be described,” because there was not much of it left standing. Bull’s account of his regiment’s passage through the southern part of the state is a litany of destruction. Yesterday he camped on the ground of a fine plantation; the mansion house is still standing, but “completely wrecked.” Today he enters the village of Robertsville, “now consisting chiefly of chimneys and ash heaps.” A resident of the village, returning after the Union soldiers have passed through, finds “but one fence paling to indicate the site of our little village.” Sherman’s aggressive cavalry commander, General Kilpatrick, strikes Barnwell, a prosperous community of 400 that boasts several churches and public buildings, a women’s seminary, and a Masonic lodge. All are torched. The Federal soldiers grin as they march away, and tell each other that now the town will have to change its name from Barnwell to Burnwell. Kilpatrick never denies the rumor circulating in the army that he had filled his men’s saddlebags with matches in preparation for the campaign.
In addition, fighting occurs at Charles Town, West Virginia; Braddock’s Farm near Welaka, Florida; and near McMinnville, Tennessee.
President Lincoln hasn’t given up his plan for compensated emancipation. He reads to the Cabinet a proposal to pay $400,000,000 (2020 $6,593,927,813) to the slave states if they abandon resistance to the national authority before April 1st. One half would be paid upon the ending of hostilities and the remainder upon approval of the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. But the Cabinet unanimously disapproves the measure which would never pass Congress.
Even as the latest attempt at a negotiated peace has come to naught, the fighting in Virginia has been going on. The winter has been unusually harsh—rain and mud alternating with snow and ice—yet Grant dares not wait until spring to get his men on the move. His objective isn’t merely to take Petersburg and Richmond, but to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia. “I was afraid, every morning,” he will later admit, “that I would awake from my sleep to hear that Lee had gone, and that nothing was left but a picket line.” If Lee can escape into the western mountains, the war might go on for months.
One way to fix Lee in position is to keep him occupied; Grant therefore has scheduled an offensive operation to begin today. The move is also meant to continue the slow encirclement of Lee’s army, which has been Grant’s strategy for the past nine months, and of restricting even more the flow of supplies to the besieged Confederates. By the end of last October, the Federals had extended the left flank of their line to within three miles of Boydton Plank Road, about two miles west of the Weldon Railroad and ten miles southwest of Petersburg. The Confederates, desperate to shield the Southside Railroad—their last link to the West and South—have thrown up an additional seven miles of fortifications on a line that bends southwestward to Hatcher’s Run, then to the northwest, parallel to the stream and across the Boydton Plank Road. Grant believes that the Boydton road is being used heavily by enemy wagon trains carrying supplies north from the interrupted Weldon Railroad. He has sent Colonel J. Irvin Gregg’s cavalry division southwest to Dinwiddie Court House—on the plank road six miles southwest of the Confederate line—to intercept and destroy as much of the traffic as he can.
Following Grant’s directive, General Meade, commanding the Army of the Potomac, orders Major General Gouverneur K. Warren to place his V Corps a few miles east of Dinwiddie to support Gregg. And to prevent the Confederates from cutting off Gregg and V Corps, two divisions of Major General Andrew A. Humphrey’s II Corps move beyond the entrenched Federal left and threaten the Confederate line in the vicinity of Hatcher’s Run. The Federals use the Vaughn road, a thoroughfare that runs west from the Weldon Railroad to Dinwiddie Court House. Meade has no plans to involve his infantry, but Lee doesn’t know that. When he learns of the Federal movements, Lee fears for the safety of the Southside Railroad, which runs from Petersburg west to Lynchburg and connects with the Richmond & Danville to North Carolina. Lee has good reason to worry: A full-scale assault over the same ground in October was stopped only after savage fighting.
Today, in icy weather, the Federal infantry divisions reach their new positions and Gregg’s men gallop onto Boydton Plank Road. They find it virtually deserted. Grant has been misled by faulty intelligence, and Gregg captures only a few wagons and a handful of prisoners. Private James L. Bowen, from Massachusetts, will recall his regiment marching and countermarching for hours on the narrow, frozen roads. Then the word comes to dig in, and the men set to work constructing rifle pits. It is, Bowen will say, a task, “which they had acquired the faculty for doing with great rapidity.” Large trees are cut down, the trunks trimmed and rolled into place, while other squads in the detail very quickly throw against them an embankment of earth sufficient to resist even cannonshot. Then a “head-log” is put in position and the work is complete. All along the Federal line, thousands of men are doing the same.
Lee in the meantime has reinforced A.P. Hill’s corps on the right with two divisions from John Gordon’s corps, which is next in line. In midafternoon, divisions commanded by Major General Henry Heth and Brigadier General Clement A. Evans move south toward Hatcher’s Run, with instructions to engage the nearest Federals. For some time, the men of Brigadier General Thomas A. Smyth’s II Corps division has watched the Confederates forming in front of them as they hasten to complete their barricades. At 3:45 pm Confederate artillery breaks the stillness of the frigid woods, and as the shells crash into the Federal works, the battle lines of Heth and Evans advance. Evans drives straight ahead; Heth moves toward open ground to the right of the Federal line, hoping to flank Smyth and draw him out of his entrenchments. But the Confederates find their way blocked by a Federal brigade commanded by Colonel Robert D. McAllister, and after a sharp exchange, both Heth and Evans fall back to their own line.
Impressed by the enemy’s strength, the Federals concentrate along Hatcher’s Run, and Meade orders in substantial reinforcements: Brigadier General Frank Wheaton’s division from VI Corps and Brigadier General John F. Hartranft’s division from IX Corps.
In South Carolina there is skirmishing at Duncanville and Combahee Ferry, as Sherman’s four corps continue crossing the various streams and swamps of the southern part of the state. The hamlets of the southern part of South Carolina are the first to feel the fury of Sherman’s invasion. Hardeeville, just across the Savannah, was burned to the ground. it could not have been a very handsome place to begin with, remarks Sergeant Bull of New York, but “now it can hardly be described,” because there was not much of it left standing. Bull’s account of his regiment’s passage through the southern part of the state is a litany of destruction. Yesterday he camped on the ground of a fine plantation; the mansion house is still standing, but “completely wrecked.” Today he enters the village of Robertsville, “now consisting chiefly of chimneys and ash heaps.” A resident of the village, returning after the Union soldiers have passed through, finds “but one fence paling to indicate the site of our little village.” Sherman’s aggressive cavalry commander, General Kilpatrick, strikes Barnwell, a prosperous community of 400 that boasts several churches and public buildings, a women’s seminary, and a Masonic lodge. All are torched. The Federal soldiers grin as they march away, and tell each other that now the town will have to change its name from Barnwell to Burnwell. Kilpatrick never denies the rumor circulating in the army that he had filled his men’s saddlebags with matches in preparation for the campaign.
In addition, fighting occurs at Charles Town, West Virginia; Braddock’s Farm near Welaka, Florida; and near McMinnville, Tennessee.
President Lincoln hasn’t given up his plan for compensated emancipation. He reads to the Cabinet a proposal to pay $400,000,000 (2020 $6,593,927,813) to the slave states if they abandon resistance to the national authority before April 1st. One half would be paid upon the ending of hostilities and the remainder upon approval of the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. But the Cabinet unanimously disapproves the measure which would never pass Congress.
Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
—Edmund Burke
—Edmund Burke