New Market Heights

For almost ten months beginning in mid-June 1864, the Army of the Potomac besieged Petersburg and Richmond from the east and south as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant extended Union fortifications west of Petersburg and launched frequent attacks there and near Richmond, forcing Gen. Robert E. Lee to stretch thin defensive lines and shift outnumbered troops. On September 29, 1864, Union forces under Gen. Benjamin F. Butler attacked Confederate defenses at New Market Heights in two prongs after part of the force crossed the James River at Deep Bottom and advanced toward the position. One wing attacked Fort Harrison while the other assaulted the earthworks along the New Market Road, where defenders had placed abatis between the line and swampy Four Mile Creek to slow the assault. Col. Samuel A. Duncan's brigade of U.S. Colored Troops, including the 4th and 6th U.S. Colored Troops, became tangled in the abatis during the initial attack and was bloodily repulsed. Gen. Charles J. Paine then led other U.S. Colored Troops brigades forward against a line defended by Confederate veterans including Gen. John Gregg's Texas brigade, the 1st Rockbridge Artillery, and part of Gen. Martin Gary's dismounted cavalry. Additional attacks, together with news that Fort Harrison had fallen, compelled the Confederates to retreat, and the U.S. Colored Troops pursued them. Fourteen of the twenty Medals of Honor awarded to black soldiers and sailors for Civil War service were given for bravery at New Market Heights, and the battle proved that U.S. Colored Troops could fight and win largely on their own. Their courage inspired the African Americans who followed them, and by the end of the war they made up 10 percent of the entire army. On April 3, 1865, Lee evacuated west after the Federal breakthrough at Petersburg, and Union forces occupied both Petersburg and Richmond.

Virginia · United States