Grant's Virginia Campaigns

Lieutenant General Grant’s strategy was to attack the Confederate armies on multiple fronts simultaneously so that they could not reinforce each other. In the early days of May 1864, Major General George G. Meade moved the Army of the Potomac across the Rapidan River and was struck by Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia at the Wilderness. After suffering heavy casualties, Grant ordered the army on to Spotsylvania Courthouse where more heavy fighting occurred. Grant then ordered a movement to the left toward the North Anna River. There, a sick Lee was unable to capitalize on a mistaken deployment of Union forces and Grant escaped a decisive battle. Grant once again made another movement to the left which led to his ill-fated attacks at Cold Harbor. In the Shenandoah Valley, Union forces led by General Franz Sigel were defeated by a scratch force under the command of Major General John C. Breckinridge at New Market. The Confederate victory was aided by a gallant charge from the cadets of the Virginia Military Institute. South of Richmond, Major General Benjamin F. Butler landed the Army of the James at Bermuda Hundred in eastern Chesterfield County. He fought inconclusively against a weak Confederate force at Port Walthall Junction, Swift Creek and Chester Station. On May 16, Butler suffered a decisive defeat at the Second Battle of Drewry’s Bluff. In a series of skirmishes from May 18-20, collectively known as the Battle of Ware Bottom Church, Butler's troops were pushed into their defensive earthworks by Confederate forces under the command of General P.G.T. Beauregard. When Grant pulled out of Cold Harbor and slipped the Army of the Potomac across the James River, the Overland and Bermuda Hundred Campaigns came to a close. The opening phases of the Siege of Petersburg had begun. During May and June of 1864, Union and Confederate forces suffered nearly 90,000 combined casualties in Virginia. Ten more months of fighting still lay ahead.

Virginia · United States