To the North Anna River

Grant and Lee, May 13–25, 1864

Gordon C. Rhea

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Year: 2005
• eBook ISBN: 9780807155981
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: American Civil War History
• Index: History

With To the North Anna River, the third book in his outstanding five-book series, Gordon C. Rhea continues his spectacular narrative of the initial campaign between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee in the spring of 1864. May 13 through 25, a phase oddly ignored by historians, was critical in the clash between the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia. During those thirteen days -- an interlude bracketed by horrific battles that riveted the public's attention -- a game of guile and endurance between Grant and Lee escalated to a suspenseful draw on Virginia's North Anna River.
From the bloodstained fields of the Mule Shoe to the North Anna River, with Meadow Bridge, Myers Hill, Harris Farm, Jericho Mills, Ox Ford, and Doswell Farm in between, grueling night marches, desperate attacks, and thundering cavalry charges became the norm for both Grant's and Lee's men. But the real story of May 13--25 lay in the two generals' efforts to outfox each other, and Rhea charts their every step and misstep. Realizing that his bludgeoning tactics at the Bloody Angle were ineffective, Grant resorted to a fast-paced assault on Lee's vulnerable points. Lee, outnumbered two to one, abandoned the offensive and concentrated on anticipating Grant's maneuvers and shifting quickly enough to repel them. It was an amazingly equal match of wits that produced a gripping, high-stakes bout of warfare -- a test, ultimately, of improvisation for Lee and of perseverance for Grant.

Notes

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1. Jedediah Hotchkiss to William W. Blackford, August 10, 1898, in Jedediah Hotchkiss Collection, LC.

INTRODUCTION

1. P. J. Staudenraus, ed., Mr. Lincoln’s Washington: Selections from the Writings of Noah Brooks Civil War Correspondent (South Brunswick, N.J., 1967), 317.

2. Noah Brooks, Washington in Lincoln’s Time (New York, 1958), 137; Ulysses S. Grant to Henry W. Halleck, May 11, 1864, in OR, Vol. 36, Pt. 2, p. 627.

3. New York Tribune, May 12, 13, 1864. The press’s reaction to the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House battles is summarized by Brooks D. Simpson, “Great Expectations: Ulysses S. Grant, the Northern Press, and the Opening of the Wilderness Campaign,” in Gary W. Gallagher, ed., The Wilderness Campaign (Chapel Hill, 1997), 1–35.

4. Staudenraus, Mr. Lincoln’s Washington, 317.

5. Thomas G. Mackenzie’s report, in OR, Vol. 36, Pt. 1, p. 273; Alfred Thompson to Emma, May 23, 1864, in Jay Luvaas Collection, USAMHI. Wagons initially crossed the Rappahannock on a dilapidated ferry that carried one vehicle at a time. Union engineers completed a four-hundred-foot pontoon bridge late on May 10; Daniel Brewster Sayre to mother, June 3, 1864, in Book 39, FSNMP.

6. W. T. G. Morton, “The First Use of Ether as an Anesthetic at the Battle of the Wilderness in the Civil War,” Journal of the American Medical Association (April 23, 1904), 1069.

7. Ibid.; New York Evening Post, May 16, 1864; George T. Stevens, Three Years in the Sixth Corps (Albany, N.Y., 1866), 340–1; Daniel A. Hardy to wife, May 13, 1864, in Book 119, FSNMP.

8. Thomas A. McParlin’s report, in OR, Vol. 36, Pt. 1, p. 230–1; Morton, “First Use of Ether,” 1070; Nathaniel Bunker memoir, CL.

9. New York Evening Post, May 16, 1864; William Landon to Friend Greene, May 18, 1864, in “Documents: Fourteenth Indiana Regiment, Letters to the Vincennes Western Sun,” Indiana Magazine of History, 34 (1938), 91–2.

10. Morton, “First Use of Ether,” 1070.

11. Ibid.

12. Newton T. Kirk reminiscences, in MSU.

13. Ibid.; J. W. Bone reminiscences, in Lowry Shuford Collection, NCDAH; George Neese, Three Years in the Confederate Horse Artillery (New York, 1911), 268.

14. Nick to editor, May 10, 1864, Raleigh (N.C.) Daily Confederate, May 25, 1864; Austin C. Dobbins, ed., Grandfather’s Journal: Company B, 16th Mississippi Infantry Volunteers, Harris’Brigade, Mahone’s Division, Hill’s Corps, A.N.V. (Dayton, 1988), 196.

15. “Interesting from the 36th Regiment,” Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, May 25, 1864.

I MAY 13 GRANT LAYS NEW PLANS

1. Theodore Lyman journal, May 12–13, 1864, in Theodore Lyman Collection, MHS; Regis De Trobriand, Four Years with the Army of the Potomac (Boston, 1889), 688.

2. Cyrus B. Comstock, The Diary of Cyrus B. Comstock, ed. Merlin E. Sumner (Dayton, 1987), 267; Lyman journal, May 12, 1864, in Lyman Collection, MHS. The Armstrong house still stands. Photographs and some of the home’s history are in “And on This Farm They Had a House,” Fredericksburg (Va.) Free Lance-Star, August 9, 1991.

3. New York Herald, April 1, 1864.

4. Josiah M. Favill, The Diary of a Young Officer Serving with the Armies of the United States During the War of the Rebellion (Chicago, 1909), 261. An engaging modern portrait of Meade appears in John J. Hennessy, “I Dread the Spring: The Army of the Potomac Prepares for the Overland Campaign,” in Gallagher, ed., Wilderness Campaign, 67–70.

5. Allan Nevins, ed., Diary of Battle: The Personal Journals of Colonel Charles S. Wainwright, 1861–1865 (New York, 1962), 338; Wells B. Fox, What I Remember of the Great Rebellion (Lansing, Mich., 1892), 70.

6. Ulysses S. Grant’s report, in OR, Vol. 36, Pt. 1, p. 14.

7. Ibid., 15–16. Details of Grant’s plan of campaign are discussed in Gordon C. Rhea, The Battle of the Wilderness: May 5–6, 1864 (Baton Rouge, 1994), 46–9.

8. Grant to Edwin M. Stanton, September 11, 1864, in OR, Vol. 42, Pt. 2, p. 783; John C. Ropes, “Grant’s Campaign in Virginia in 1864,” PMHSM, 4, 372–75; Martin T. McMahon, “From Gettysburg to the Coming of Grant,” B&L, 4, pp. 91–92.

9. George Breck to family, May 13, 1864, Rochester (N.Y.) Union and Advertiser, May 18, 1864. Union casualties are reviewed in Gordon C. Rhea, The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern: May 7–12, 1864 (Baton Rouge, 1997), 319.

10. Grant’s report, in OR, Vol. 36, Pt. 1, p. 18; Meade to wife, May 19, 1864, in George G. Meade Collection, HSP; Isaac R. Pennypacker, General Meade (New York, 1901), 296; Grant to Stanton, May 13, 1864, in OR, Vol. 36, Pt. 2, p. 695.

11. Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant (New York, 1897), 108; Meade to John A. Rawlins, June 21, 1864, in Meade Collection, HSP; Lyman journal, May 10, 1864, in Lyman Collection, MHS; Charles A. Whittier reminiscences, in Boston Public Library. A recounting of Warren’s activities through May 12, 1864, appears in Gordon C. Rhea, “The Testing of a Corps Commander: Gouverneur Kemble Warren at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania,” in Gary W. Gallagher, ed., The Spotsylvania Campaign (Chapel Hill, N.C, 1998).

12. Morris Schaff, The Battle of the Wilderness (Boston, 1910), 201.

13. Grant to Henry Halleck, May 12, 1864, in OR, Vol. 36, Pt. 2, p. 652; Grant to wife, May 13, 1864, in John Y. Simon, ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, vol. 10 (Carbondale, I11. 1967–1999), 443–4; Meade to wife, May 13, 1864, in Meade Collection, HSP; Circular, May 13, 1864, in OR, Vol. 36, Pt. 1, p. 197.

14. Robert E. Lee to Jefferson Davis, June 10, 1863, in Clifford Dowdey, ed., The Wartime Papers of R. E. Lee (New York, 1961), 508; James Longstreet to Alexander R. Lawton, March 5, 1864, in OR, Vol. 32, Pt. 3, p. 588.

15. Augusta (Ga.) Constitutionalist, January 2, 1864; John C. Waugh, Reelecting Lincoln: The Battle for the 1864 Presidency (New York, 1997), 149–51.

16. Francis Marion Welchel to family, April 26, 1864, in Book 81, FSNMP. Attitudes in Lee’s army are deftly traced in J. Tracy Power, Lee’s Miserables: Life in the Army of Northern Virginia from the Wilderness to Appomattox (Chapel Hill, 1998), and Gary W. Gallagher, “Our Hearts Are Full of Hope: The Army of Northern Virginia in the Spring of 1864,” in Gallagher, ed., Wilderness Campaign, 36–65.

17. Developments on Pickett’s and Beauregard’s fronts are summarized in Douglas Southall Freeman, R. E. Lee, vol. 3 (New York, 1934–1935), 332–4, and in Clifford Dowdey, Lee’s Last Campaign: The Story of Lee and His Men Against Grant, 1864 (New York, 1960), 226–34.

18. Davis to Lee, May 13, 1864, in OR, Vol. 51, Pt. 2, p. 926.

19. Lee to Davis, April 15, 1864, ibid., Vol. 33, 1282–3.

20. Charles M. Blackford to wife, May 19, 1864, in Susan Leigh Blackford, comp., Letters from Lee’s Army: or, Memories of Life in and out of the Army in Virginia During the War Between the States (New York, 1947), 246; Susan P. Lee, Memoirs of William Nelson Pendleton, D.D. (Philadelphia, 1893), 332. An analysis of Lee’s strength on May 13 appears in Rhea, Battles for Spotsylvania Court House, 324.

21. The 1st Corps’s third division—George Pickett’s outfit—was scattered in southern Virginia and North Carolina.

22. Walter A. Montgomery, The Days of Old and the Years That Are Past (Raleigh, N.C., n.d.), 28; Terry L. Jones, ed., The Civil War Memoirs of Captain William J. Seymour: Reminiscences of a Louisiana Tiger (Baton Rouge, 1991), 125; William Allan, “Memoranda of Conversations with Lee,” in SHC.

23. John O. Casier, Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade (Girard, Kans., 1906), 331.

24. Lee to George Washington Custis Lee, April 9, 1864, in Dowdey, ed., ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• I MAY 13, 1864 Grant Lays New Plans
• II MAY 12–13 Sheridan Threatens Richmond and Escapes at Meadow Bridge
• III MAY 14 Grant Forfeits an Opportunity
• IV MAY 15–16 Grant Settles on a New Offensive
• V MAY 17–18 Grant Launched His Grand Assault
• VI May 19–20 Ewell Strikes at Harris Farm
• VII MAY 21 Grant Swings South and Lee Counters
• VIII MAY 22 Lee Wind the Race to the River
• IX MAY 23 Grant Attacks at the North Anna
• X MAY 24 Grant Marches into Lee’s Trap
• Epilogue
• Appendix: The Order of Battle
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index