As the summer of 1864 ended with Union Gen. U.S. Grant’s army still besieging Petersburg, Confederate sources learned that a large herd of cattle was being held at Coggin’s Point on the James River, grazing at Beechwood, the plantation of secessionist leader Edmund Ruffin, to be issued to Northern soldiers. Confederate cavalry commander Gen. Wade Hampton received permission to seize them, and after leaving camp on Sept. 14 with about 3,000 cavalry and four artillery pieces, his force rode more than 100 miles around the Union lines. Reaching the destination two days later, the Confederates overwhelmed the guards and rounded up 2,500 head of cattle, while another Southern cavalry contingent at Sycamore Church skirmished with a Federal outpost and captured most of that command. After recrossing the Blackwater Swamp, Hampton’s horsemen sent the herd on a more southerly route across the Jerusalem Plank Road at Hawkinsville toward Freeman’s Ford on the Nottoway River, while near Belsches Mill at Ebenezer Church Confederate cavalry fought a delaying action that successfully held back Union Gen. Henry E. Davies’ troopers from retaking the cattle, causing Davies to fall back to Petersburg that evening. By the morning of Sept. 17 Hampton had returned to his lines with fresh beef for Lee’s commissary, having captured more than 300 Union prisoners and 2,486 steers, about 2 million pounds of beef, while Confederate losses were 10 killed, 47 wounded, and four missing. Shortly afterward, when an officer who had tried to stop Hampton asked Grant how long it would take to starve out Lee and take Richmond, Grant replied, “Forever, General, if you keep feeding Lee’s army with beef.”