On 7 Dec. 1864, Union Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren led 28,000 men south from Petersburg to destroy the Petersburg Railroad between Stony Creek and the Meherrin River railroad bridge at Hicksford, thereby severing the Confederate supply line. Two days later, at Hicksford, a Confederate force under Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton and Maj. Gen. W. H. Fitzhugh Lee confronted him. To avert the capture of the railroad bridge, Hampton and Lee ordered it burned, but Union gunfire drove off the firing party. On 10 Dec., Warren withdrew and the Confederates quickly repaired 17 miles of the railroad.