After the Battle of Cold Harbor in June 1864, General Ulysses S. Grant’s Union army crossed the James River, failed to break Petersburg’s outer defenses, and settled into a siege, forcing General Robert E. Lee to stretch Confederate forces nearly to the breaking point to defend both Richmond and Petersburg along a line nearly 35 miles long. Through the summer of 1864, Union assaults north and south of the James were unsuccessful, but after Atlanta fell and a significant Union victory came at Winchester in the Shenandoah Valley, Grant ordered new attacks on September 29, 1864, against Richmond and Petersburg, including Fort Harrison and New Market Heights. Fort Harrison, built by the Confederates in 1862 and 1863 on a prominent hill overlooking the James River, was the largest and most heavily fortified position in Richmond’s exterior line north of the river, and Union forces crossed the James on a military bridge just after dawn and stormed it successfully. Although they captured their primary objective, they could not press farther, while Confederate troops held Fort Gilmer, Fort Gregg, Fort Hoke, and Fort Johnson, reshaped their line, and blocked the direct road to Richmond, helping produce a stalemate for the final six months of the war. The same day, regiments of United States Colored Troops captured New Market Heights after a bloody morning attack, marking the first time in the Virginia campaigns that African American troops independently mounted a major assault. The fighting on September 29 also opened opportunities south of the James, where Grant attacked west of Petersburg during September 29 through October 2 at Peebles’ Farm, taking advantage of Confederate defenders sent toward Richmond and consolidating a Union foothold for further movement toward the transportation arteries supplying Lee’s army. Fort Harrison’s capture formed one of several connected episodes of the Battle of Chaffin’s Farm.
