Hancock's 'Well-Conducted Fizzle'

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With Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia stubbornly
clinging to Petersburg,Ulysses S. Grant decided to cut its
vital rail lines. To perform the surgery, he selected one of
the North’s proven heroes– ‘Hancock the Superb.’

By Bruce A. Trinque

General UIysses S. Grant had hammered and probed the defenses of Petersburg, Virginia, for the past four months, ever since the finish of the bloody Overland campaign that took the Union Army of the Potomac from the tangled woods of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania to the deadly fields of Cold Harbor. Then, in a skillful maneuver in mid-June 1864, Grant had slipped away to cross the James River and strike at Petersburg, through which passed the vital supply arteries that kept alive General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and the Confederate capital at Richmond.

Despite the unaccustomed advantage of surprise, the weary Union soldiers of the Army of the Potomac and their comrades of the Army of the James were unable to overcome the city’s defenses by quick assault. Only once, in late July, when a huge mine was exploded beneath a Confederate salient, did Grant attempt to directly breach the Petersburg lines. But the ensuing Union attack was badly bungled, and the Battle of the Crater ended with a crushing Federal repulse.

Repeatedly, however, Grant sent forces to the south and west in efforts to push past the Confederate right flank and capture
the roads and rail lines that carried the Rebels’ vital food and munitions. Each time, the Army of Northern Virginia struck back hard at the probing Union columns and stopped them before their objectives could be achieved. Yet each failed attempt stretched the Confederate defenses longer and thinner, and gradually the supply lines were cut. Now, as autumn settled over Virginia, only the Southside Railroad and the Boydton Plank Road west of Petersburg remained securely in Confederate hands.

In late October, Grant told Maj. Gen. George Meade, field commander of the Army of the Potomac, to undertake a “formidable movement” to seize the Southside Railroad. Success there would essentially force Lee to abandon Petersburg and Richmond and would be an added boost to Abraham Lincoln’s campaign for re-election as president in early November, coming as it would on the heels of Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s conquest of Atlanta and Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan’s victory at Cedar Creek in the Shenan-doah Valley.

Meade quickly put together his plan. The IX Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. John G. Parke, was to launch a surprise attack at the right of the Confederate line, where, it was believed, entrenchments were incomplete and lightly manned. These fieldworks were thought to extend southwest to Hatcher’s Run, a long creek that ran mostly northwest to southeast and was crossed at several points by fords or bridges. Major General Gouverneur Kemble Warren, with his V Corps, would move simultaneously with Parke. If, as expected, the IX Corps broke the Confederate line, Warren was to immediately move on the enemy. If Parke’s attack did not succeed, the V Corps would instead cross Hatcher’s Run, then march farther west before recrossing the run above the Boydton Plank Road bridge to attack eastward and come up behind the defending Confederates.

In either case, the primary strike against the Southside Railroad was in the hands of Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock, who would have two divisions of his own II Corps and one division of cavalry, led by Brig. Gen. David M. Gregg. Meade’s plan called for Hancock to cross Hatcher’s Run at the Vaughan Road ford, then advance several miles west and finally recross Hatcher’s Run to seize the railroad. In addition, north of the James River, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler would put his troops in motion to prevent Lee from dispatching reinforcements to Petersburg.

The Union high command’s notion of local geography was imprecise, with most of their information about Confederate defenses near Hatcher’s Run coming from enemy deserters. Much of the ground over which Parke, Warren and Hancock were to attack was heavily wooded, traversed only by narrow roads unsuited for rapid movement. Parts of the terrain were considered to be even worse than the notorious Wilderness, where Grant and Lee had first met in combat in early May.

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