Battle for Weldon Railroad

[CSA Today]

June 22nd 1864; General A.P. Hill's boys keep the Yankees from seizing the 'Weldon Railroad' near Petersburg, Virginia.

 

[AUG]

On June 21, elements of the II Corps probed toward the railroad and skirmished with Confederate cavalry. The plan of attack was that both the II and VI Corps would cross the Jerusalem Plank Road and then pivot northwest about 2 miles (3.2 km) to reach the railroad. Difficult terrain—swamps and thickets—slowed their advance and by the morning of June 22, a gap opened up between the two corps. While the II Corps began pivoting as planned, the VI Corps encountered Confederate troops from Maj. Gen. Camdus Wilcox's division of Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill's corps and they began to entrench rather than advance. Brig. Gen. William Mahone, another division commander in Hill's corps, observed that the gap between the two Union corps was widening, creating a prime target.

Mahone had been a railroad engineer before the war and had personally surveyed this area south of Petersburg, so he was familiar with a ravine that could be used to hide the approach of a Confederate attack column. Robert E. Lee approved Mahone's plan and at 3 p.m. on June 22, Mahone's men emerged in the rear of the II Corps division of Brig. Gen. Francis C. Barlow, catching them by surprise. A soldier wrote, "The attack was to the Union troops more than a surprise. It was an astonishment."

Barlow's division quickly collapsed under the surprise assault. The division of Brig. Gen. John Gibbon, which had erected earthworks, was also surprised by an attack from the rear and many of the regiments ran for safety. Mahone sent an urgent message to his colleague Wilcox, asking him to join in the attack, but Wilcox was concerned about the VI Corps men to his front and the two regiments he sent in support arrived too late to make a difference. The II Corps troops rallied around earthworks that they had constructed on the night of June 21 and stabilized their lines. Darkness ended the fighting.

On June 23, the II Corps advanced to retake its lost ground, but the Confederates had pulled back, abandoning the earthworks they had captured. Under orders from General Meade, the VI Corps sent out a heavy skirmish line after 10 a.m. in a second attempt to reach the Weldon Railroad. Men from Brig. Gen. Lewis A. Grant's 1st Vermont Brigade had begun tearing up track when they were attacked by a larger force of Confederate infantry. Numerous Vermonters were taken prisoner and only about .5 miles (0.80 km) of track had been destroyed when they were chased away. Meade repeatedly urged Horatio G. Wright to move forward and engage the enemy, but Wright refused to move, concerned that his corps would suffer the same reverses as the II Corps the previous day. At 7:35 p.m., Meade gave up and told Wright, "Your delay has been fatal." Meade's aide Theodore Lyman wrote, "On this particular occasion Wright showed himself totally unfit to command a corps."

With a wild yell which rang out shrill and fierce through the gloomy pines, Mahone's men burst upon the flank—a pealing volley, which roared along the whole front—a stream of wasting fire, under which the adverse left fell as one man—and the bronzed veterans swept forward, shriveling up Barlow's division as lightning shrivels the dead leaves of autumn.

Diary of W. Gordon McCabe, artilleryman in Mahone's division

Union casualties were 2,962, Confederate 572. The battle was inconclusive, with advantages gained on both sides. The Confederates were able to retain control of the Weldon Railroad. The Federals were able to destroy a short segment of the Weldon before being driven off, but more importantly, the siege lines were stretched further to the west, a strategy Grant would continue until the spring of 1865. Other segments of the Weldon Railroad were destroyed by the Wilson-Kautz Raid and more would fall to the Union Army during the Battle of Glode Tavern (or the Second Battle of the Weldon Railroad) in August, although Lee could ship supplies by wagon from the Weldon where it reached Stony Creek Station. In an expedition of December 7–11, Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren destroyed an additional 16 miles (26 km) of track, rendering the Weldon Railroad unable to supply Petersburg.

Expired Image Removed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jerusalem_Plank_Road

 

[John Wilder]

The odd thing is that while the Yankees wanted to cut the Weldon Railroad to shut-off supplies to Lee's army, an increasing amount of those supplies were coming from Yankee merchants. Much of it arrived via the Dismal Swamp canal from Norfolk where the maestro of crooked trade was in charge, to wit, Benjamin "Beast" Butler.

The irony. Grant militarily trying to cut off Lee's supplies while Butler just kept shipping in more. It would have been easier for the North if Lincoln had simply allowed Grant to abrogate the permits used by Butler's minions. It wasn't until March 8, 1865 that Lincoln finally gave in -- and then only partially. Too many well connected Yankees were making too much money.

According to Lincoln's own Attorney General, "..the thirst for dishonest gain [is] now so common [it] ceases to shock."

What became of the idealism so many associate with the Union cause? How much idealism was there to begin with?

 

[RobertP]

My ggrandfather's oldest brother, a Capt. in Co. D, 12th Miss., Harris Bgde., Mahone's Div. suffered a severe shoulder wound there which effectively ended his active participation for the remainder of the war. A younger brother, a Pvt. In the same regt. continued to serve until he was captured in the defense of Ft. Gregg during the Petersburg breakthrough the following April.