Butler’s attack stalled under fierce Union fire. Two of Hampton’s sons served on their father’s staff. One was shot, dying within minutes, his father at his side. Almost immediately, Hampton’s other son was seriously wounded. Lee’s attack along the Plank Road made only slow progress, resisted tenaciously by Gregg’s dismounted cavalry. Heth’s attack across Hatcher’s Run was quickly repulsed; Smyth later singled out for praise the 8th New York Heavy Artillery and 164th New York Infantry, two of the regiments forbidden to carry flags.

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Mahone’s initial success proved to be a trap. The hard-driving Virginian quickly pushed forward, only to find himself with Union troops arrayed against him on three sides. Hancock rallied his soldiers along the Boydton Plank Road to halt Mahone’s thrust. McAllister’s brigade, with support from some of Smyth’s men, charged down from the high ground to the north into the Confederate right flank, while de Trobriand’s brigade beyond the Plank Road faced about and attacked Mahone’s front.

Hancock himself went forward to lead the charge. Even part of Gregg’s cavalry division joined in a counterattack on the Rebel left. Along the Boydton Plank Road, one of Hancock’s staff officers led a charge of the 36th Wisconsin–the third disgraced and flagless regiment–and captured more prisoners than the regiment had men. Most satisfying to them, they also took a Confederate battleflag. Mahone’s force collapsed under the multiple assaults and fled back into the woods, losing several hundred prisoners. The triumphant Federal soldiers recaptured their two artillery pieces taken only minutes earlier.

With Mahone’s attack decisively crushed and repelled, Hancock sent reinforcements to Gregg. As darkness fell, Lee gave up the fight and withdrew, ending the Battle of Boydton Plank Road. By a narrow margin, the II Corps had escaped catastrophe.

Meade sent word to Hancock during the early evening that two divisions of the IV Corps had been ordered to join him and that, if Hancock so desired, he could renew his attack on the Confederate lines in the morning. If Hancock thought it best not to attack, he was authorized to withdraw his forces at any time.

Hancock the Superb deliberated only briefly before advising Meade: “I have to say that if I had two fresh divisions and ammunition for my own command, I would attack tomorrow morning, but I consider the chances of these things being here at an early enough hour to be uncertain and the risk considerable. I think the circumstances indicate falling back to be the proper course. I have a frail hold on the roads between me and the Fifth Corps, and if any accident should prevent my receiving the ammunition and troops at an early hour, the result would be a disaster, as the enemy have hemmed me in and pressed me closely. [I] will, therefore, withdraw rather than take the responsibility of disaster. At the same time I regret it, as I have resisted successfully so far.”

During the night, the II Corps pulled back along the track past Dabney’s Mill, while Gregg’s cavalry retraced its own route to the battlefield, slowed by the destruction of the bridge on the Quaker Road. Due to confusion in the darkness and through mismanagement on the part of some officers, not all the Union picket force was withdrawn. Most regrettably, the available ambulances could not carry all the wounded, and more than 250 were left behind in the care of volunteer surgeons.

The Army of the Potomac lost more than 1,750 men during that attempt to turn Robert E. Lee’s right flank, about 1,000 of them soldiers of the II Corps. Confederate casualties exceeded 1,300, a number more nearly equal to Union losses than had usually been the case during the Petersburg campaign. Hancock’s withdrawal left the Boydton Plank Road in Confederate hands, but once again the Army of Northern Virginia had been forced to stretch its lines westward to forestall another strike against the Southside Railroad.

Hancock reported the fight at Hatcher’s Run as “my victory” and wrote to a friend, “We had a hard fight but beat the enemy.” Grant telegraphed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton that the action “proves to be a decided success.” Yet the evidence of the battlefield–hundreds of wounded left behind in Confederate hands–pointed to something less than outright victory. The goal of cutting Lee’s last supply routes remained out of reach. Still, Hancock’s men had held their own, and the battle was not a repeat of the previous humiliations at the Jerusalem Plank Road and Reams’ Station. Any failure was due to the errors of the commanding generals, who had planned an operation over roads too narrow and distances too great, not the soldiers who fought so hard and so well.

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