On May 4, 1864, Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler began loading 38,000 men of the Army of the James onto transport ships at Newport News and Yorktown, Virginia, for an operation against the neck of land in Chesterfield County known as Bermuda Hundred. His mission was to land there, secure a base of operations, sever the rail link between Richmond and Petersburg, and, if practicable, advance on either city, while Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant moved the Army of the Potomac across the Rapidan River against Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. On May 5, Butler’s troops seized Bermuda Hundred and City Point, and after establishing a beachhead they advanced to this point and began digging a line of defensive earthworks on May 6. The 18th Corps built works here with its left anchored on the Appomattox River and its right near Ware Bottom Church about two miles north, and the 10th Corps continued the line from Ware Bottom Church north another mile to the James River. Butler had landed his men to the complete surprise of the Confederates and established a defensive front, while Confederate commanders tried to gather their scattered forces to meet the new threat, and for a brief time the doors to Richmond and Petersburg were wide open.