General Grand near Cold Harbor, Virginia in June 1864.
June 1864
By Phil Kohn
Phil Kohn can be reached at USCW160@yahoo.com
June 1, 1864, is a busy day. Fighting begins between the Union Army of the Potomac and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia at Cold Harbor, Virginia, northwest of Richmond. Gen. Robert E. Lee orders two attacks on the Union flanks that are repulsed, in part due to Maj. Gen. Phil Sheridan’s cavalry, using the new Spencer repeating rifles. Lt. Gen. U.S. Grant orders three advances on the entrenched Confederates that are likewise turned back, with significant casualties. Farther west, at Pound Gap, Virginia, Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan leads 3,000 Confederate cavalrymen on a raid into Kentucky to relieve the pressure on Gen. Joseph Johnston in Georgia. In Georgia, Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman is applying the pressure to Johnston but worries about Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry disrupting his ever-lengthening supply lines. To solve the problem, Sherman dispatches Brig Gen. Samuel Sturgis from Memphis with 3,000 cavalry, 4,800 infantry and 18 guns and with orders to hunt down and kill “That devil Forrest . . . if it costs 10,000 lives and bankrupts the Federal treasury.” Meanwhile, Forrest leads 3,500 troopers out of Tupelo, Mississippi, northeastward for a raid across the Tennessee River into Alabama.
On June 3, Forrest gets word of Sturgis approaching Tupelo, so he turns his force around and heads back. At Cold Harbor, Virginia, Grant tries a frontal assault on Lee’s well-entrenched troops. The result: about 3,500 Union casualties in 35 minutes. To his troops’ dismay, Grant orders a second frontal assault. The result is similar. Grant’s order for a third attack is ignored. Union casualties: 7,000, plus another 5,000 on June 1 and 2. Confederate casualties over the same period: around 1,500. Grant later writes: “No advantage whatever was gained from the heavy loss we sustained.”
In Georgia, Gen. Joseph Johnston on June 4 pulls his Confederates into a stronger defensive position in front of Kennesaw Mountain, northwest of Atlanta.
Brig. Gen. David Hunter, with 16,000 Union troops, defeats Brig. Gen. William “Grumble” Jones and his 5,000 Confederates at Piedmont, Virginia, on June 5. Jones is killed during the battle. Hunter has been ordered by Grant to do what Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel couldn’t do: clear the Shenandoah Valleyof Confederates.
David Hunter, marching his Union force up the Shenandoah Valley (i.e., southward), and causing much damage to civilian property, captures Staunton, Virginia, on June 6. At Cold Harbor, Virginia, the opposing armies remain in their entrenchments facing each other. However, the agonized screams and moans of the Union soldiers that had been wounded and left between the lines have been silenced. (For three days, Grant — perhaps to avoid admitting being the loser of the fighting — has refused to request a truce to remove the wounded and dead.) Only two of the wounded have survived since the battle on June 3, the others dying of wounds, thirst, hunger and exposure. Finally, Lt. Gen. Grant relents and permits stretcher-bearers under a flag of truce to move between the lines to remove the Union dead. Grant realizes that direct assaults will not work and he will have to once again move the Army of the Potomac southward. This time, it will be across the James River — to attack Petersburg, Virginia, the so-called back door to strongly defended Richmond. Petersburg is a significant target, since several railroads run into the city, bringing supplies, which are then sent on to Richmond, to the north.
In convention at Baltimore, Maryland, on June 8 the National Union Party (an amalgam of Republicans and War Democrats) unanimously nominates Abraham Lincoln as its candidate for president in 1864. In a somewhat surprising move, Tennessee Democrat Andrew Johnson is selected as the vice-presidential candidate. The same day, Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan’s raiders capture the 380-man Federal garrison at Mt. Sterling, Kentucky. They also take $18,000 from a local bank.
On June 9, Brig. Gen. Stephen Burbridge, with 5,000 Federal troops routs John Hunt Morgan from Sterling, Kentucky, capturing a number of Confederates left behind. Part of Burbridge’s force sets out in pursuit of the Confederate raider. In Virginia, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler, with 4,000 troops, attempts to move against Petersburg but is repelled by a line of 2,500 Confederate defenders that have him “bottled up” on the Bermuda Hundred peninsula.
June 10 is another active day. In Kentucky, John Hunt Morgan, even with his depleted force, takes Lexington and burns the Federal depot there, capturing 7,000 horses. In the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, David Hunter occupies Lexington and burns the buildings of the Virginia Military Institute. In Mississippi, Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest engages Brig. Gen. Samuel Sturgis at Brice’s Crossroads, south of Corinth, outmaneuvers him and routs the Federal force — even though outnumbered by more than two-to-one. Forrest captures 1,623 soldiers, 184 horses, 16 of Sturgis’s 18 guns, and 176 wagons filled with supplies. Union casualties: 617 killed and wounded; Confederate killed and wounded: 492. This stunning victory prompts thoughts in Richmond of moving Forrest to Georgia as Gen. Johnston’s cavalry commander against Sherman. However, Gen. Braxton Bragg, now President Davis’s military chief of staff and who has borne the brunt of Forrest’s trait of active antagonism towards superiors (whom Forrest considers ineffective), sways the president to leave Forrest in Mississippi. The decision pleases Union Maj. Gen. Sherman.
On June 11, John Hunt Morgan’s Confederates capture another Union garrison, at Cynthiana, Kentucky. The same day, 8,000 Union cavalrymen under Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan, trying to rendezvous with Maj. Gen. David Hunter at Charlottesville, Virginia, are engaged by 5,000 Confederate cavalry under Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton (Jeb Stuart’s successor as cavalry commander of the Army of Northern Virginia) and Maj. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee in the vicinity of Trevilian Station. The fighting this day and the next is confused and the results are mixed, but the ferocity of the resistance persuades Sheridan to give up trying to reach Hunter. In Europe, CSS Alabama, the Confederacy’s most successful raider, puts into Cherbourg, France, for badly needed refitting and replenishment.
Grant, having finally recognized that frontal assaults on Lee’s positions at Cold Harbor will not succeed, on June 12 begins moving his troops stealthily across the James River towards Petersburg, south of Richmond. Five railroads feed supplies for Richmond into the city. (The secretive and well-executed Union troop movements continue through June 15 and are so successful that Gen. Lee does not fully realize the Federals are at Petersburg until June 17.) In Kentucky, Brig. Gen. Steven Burbridge’s Federals attack Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan’s Confederates at Cynthiana. Morgan, losing half his men, retreats toward Abingdon, Virginia, in the southwest of the state.
Fearing an attack from the Shenandoah Valley, Lee on June 13 detaches Lt. Gen. Jubal Early from his lines with 10,000 cavalry and 4,000 infantry and sends him off to stop Hunter, who is now threatening Lynchburg, an important rail center.
In skirmishing at Pine Mountain, Georgia, on June 14, Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk, also an Episcopal bishop, is felled by a cannonball. He is the second-highest-ranking Confederate officer killed in the war (after Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, mortally wounded at Shiloh in April 1862). In Virginia, Lt. Gen. Grant sends Maj. Gen. William F. “Baldy” Smith and his corps by water to join Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler and his men, bottled up in Bermuda Hundred, about 16 miles northeast of Petersburg. In fact, Grant travels with Smith’s force and meets with Smith and Butler to plan an attack on Petersburg by the two. In France, the sloop-of-war USS Kearsarge arrives off Cherbourg to blockade the Confederate raider CSS Alabama, in port for a refit.
Confederate cavalry comprising Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Creek troopers led by Brig. Gen. Stand Watie, himself a Cherokee, on June 15 captures, then destroys, the Union transport vessel J.R. Williams on San Bois Creek, in the Choctaw Nation of Indian Territory. En route to re-supply Union-held Ft. Gibson, in the Cherokee Nation, the paddle-wheeler yields $120,000 worth of supplies and military equipment. In Virginia, 5,400 Confederates under Gen. Pierre Beauregard at the “neck” of Bermuda Hundred, where they have been bottling up Maj. Gen. Butler’s troops, are under attack by the newly arrived 16,000 Union troops of Maj. Gen. “Baldy” Smith. Sending an urgent appeal to Gen. Lee for reinforcements, Beauregard’s messenger is told by Lee that Beauregard is mistaken about a large force of Federals south of the James River. (Lee still doesn’t realize that Grant has moved his force south.) Fortunately for the Southerners, the Union attack suffers from delayed starts, slow movement, faulty maps, hazy orders and unnecessary stops for provisions. The Yankees by the end of the day, however, have pushed the Confederates out of their entrenchments. But instead of pressing their advantage by continuing the attack into the moonlit night, Smith blunders and decides to call a halt to the Union advance in order to reorganize. Overnight, Beauregard abandons his positions and begins moving his men towards Petersburg, leaving only a thousand or so at Bermuda Hundred.
On June 16, Gen. Beauregard is at Petersburg, Virginia, with around 14,000 troops at his disposal. The Southerners are facing, effectively, the entire Army of the Potomac. Attacks on several fronts by the Federals enable them to capture some positions. Gen. Lee finally sends reinforcements but — still not comprehending the situation — sends them to Bermuda Hundred instead of Petersburg.
The fighting at Petersburg continues June 17 and Beauregard pulls his troops into tighter defensive positions. Gen. Lee, finally perceiving what’s happening, orders Lt. Gen. Richard Anderson and Lt. Gen. A. P. Hill to move quickly to Petersburg with their respective corps.
After repulsing Union Maj. Gen. David Hunter’s attempts to take Lynchburg, Virginia, on June 18, Lt. Gen. Jubal Early begins a counteroffensive that forces Hunter to retreat from the Shenandoah Valley into the Kanawha Valley of West Virginia. With Hunter out of the way, Early begins moving his troops down the Valley (i.e., northward) towards the Potomac River. He decides he will invade the North.
On June 19, off Cherbourg, France, the armored-hull sloop-of-war USS Kearsarge engages the Confederate raider CSS Alabama — which sails out of the harbor, unrefitted, to give battle to the Union vessel — and sinks her. Three of Kearsarge’s complement are wounded; Alabama’s crew of 145 suffers 19 killed and 21 wounded. Kearsarge rescues most of Alabama’s survivors, but, to the chagrin of Kearsarge’s officers, Deerhound, a private British steam yacht that was nearby viewing the battle, rescues Capt. Raphael Semmes and 41 of his crew and whisks them to safety in England. (The Federals were hoping to capture Semmes, who had taken 82 Federal merchant vessels during his cruise, 65 of them while in command of Alabama.) In Georgia, Gen. Joseph Johnston, facing pressure from the Union forces of Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, moves his Confederates to a yet stronger defensive position on the heights of Kennesaw Mountain, some 25 miles northwest of Atlanta.
After several attacks and skirmishes against Confederate lines south of Petersburg fail, Lt. Gen. Grant decides on June 20 to give up taking the city by frontal assaults and, instead to establish a siege line and cut off the railroads serving the city. Around Petersburg, Union casualties total some 10,000; Confederate casualties number around 4,000.
President Lincoln arrives at Petersburg on June 21 and tours the Union siege lines on horseback with Lt. Gen. Grant.
On June 22, Lt. Grant starts flanking maneuvers, extending his lines westward to form a semi-circle around Petersburg, south of the city. Gen. Lee soon arrives in the city and both sides begin digging in for a siege.
Union cavalry on June 23 briefly holds a section of the Weldon Railroad near Petersburg but is ultimately driven off. At the same time, Federal cavalry is attacking the South Side Railroad west of Petersburg. In the Shenandoah Valley, Lt. Gen. Jubal Early’s Confederates continue to move northward while skirmishing with the retreating Federals under Maj. Gen. David Hunter. In Georgia, two weeks of rain have kept things quiet between the forces of Joseph Johnston and William T. Sherman, but the rain is beginning to taper off.
Pennsylvania coal miners in the Union lines south of Petersburg on June 25 begin digging a 511-foot-long tunnel toward and under the Confederate earthworks opposite them. The plan: Pack the tunnel with gunpowder and detonate it, causing a breach in the Confederate lines. The scheme is enthusiastically supported by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside; not so much by Lt. Gen. Grant, who reluctantly approves the plan.
In Georgia, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman changes his usual tactics, ordering a rare (for him) frontal assault on Johnston’s well-positioned Confederates atop Kennesaw Mountain in over-100-degree heat on June 27. Three separate attacks get nowhere. Union casualties: 2,051. Confederate: 442. In Washington, D.C., Abraham Lincoln accepts his nomination for president by the National Union Party. There remains significant division in the North over who should be the next president. A group of Radical Republicans proposed John C. Frémont in May, urging an extremely harsh war policy. Peace Democrats and others attack Lincoln with increasing vitriol and urge negotiation or some other non-violent way to end the war.
President Lincoln, on June 28, signs a bill that repeals the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
On June 30, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, after more wrangling with President Lincoln, yet once again submits his resignation. This time, to Chase’s surprise, Lincoln accepts it, saying, “You and I have reached a point of mutual embarrassment in our official relation, which it seems can not be overcome.” In the Shenandoah Valley, Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal Early divides his “army” of 10,000 into two corps and moves his troops to New Market, Virginia.
