Back in the smoking Wilderness, around 7 p.m. on May 7, Grant sent his army toward Spotsylvania Court House. Anticipating such a threat, Lee ordered Anderson’s corps to head for the same area. Weisiger’s Brigade headed south on the 8th with the rest of Mahone’s Division, and the brigade joined in a scrape that cleared the Catharpin Road, which entered Shady Grove Church Road on the way to Spotsylvania, for Confederate use.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in America's Civil War magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

By May 9, the Virginians were erecting fortifications near Spotsylvania. Their labor was interrupted at about 8 p.m. by an urgent request from Lee to move three miles west of Spotsylvania to counter a threat by three infantry divisions of Hancock’s II Corps that had crossed to the south side of the Po River.

Weisiger set his men in motion on the Shady Grove Church Road leading Mahone’s Division toward the army’s left. By 3 a.m. on the 10th they came to within 1,000 yards of the Yankee position at Block House Bridge spanning the Po. Another division was sent to support Mahone, and the two detachments advanced and pushed the II Corps back across the river.

The Old Dominion Brigade spent the 11th and the early part of the 12th at Block House Bridge, but rushed back to the main Confederate line at first light on the 12th after Hancock’s and Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s IX Corps Federals broke through at a section of the Rebel line known as the Mule Shoe. Weisiger’s Brigade, with two others, stepped off at 1 p.m. to strike Burnside’s left flank. Weisiger led his regiments under the concealment of woods south of the Fredericksburg Road, then swung north and hit the flank of Union Maj. Gen. Orlando B. Willcox’s division. Willcox fended off the Rebels, though the unexpected Confederate attack took the steam out of Burnside’s effort.

From the 13th to the 19th, except for a small action that pushed Union forces back across the Ny River, Mahone’s old brigade did little fighting. But on May 20 Grant slipped south toward Richmond. Lee followed suit and beat Grant to the North Anna River, crossed to its south shore and awaited the Federals. That same day Grant hurled his V and VI corps over the North Anna near Jericho Ford, but A.P. Hill failed to concentrate his troops and throw the Yankees back across the river.

With Union forces lodged south of the North Anna, Lee built a V-shaped trench system with the point of the V near Ox Ford. The Union V and IX corps made a surprise thrust a mile below the ford on May 24 that the Old Dominion troops, concealed in thick woods, thwarted with effective rifle fire.

The next 10 days saw the antagonists maneuver from the North Anna to the York River to Totopotomy Creek and finally to a road junction east of the Confederate capital called Cold Harbor. On June 3, Weisiger’s command came to the aid of Maj. Gen. John Breckinridge’s Division as it was pressed hard by Hancock’s corps.

Grant soon opted to cross the James River and seize Petersburg, hoping control of that vital link in the Confederate supply chain would ultimately starve Lee’s army into submission. Lee followed but could not prevent the Union force from crossing to the south bank of the James and moving to threaten Petersburg. On June 15, the XVIII Corps, of the Army of the James, made the first Union assault on the city’s defenses. In response, much of Lee’s army, including Weisiger’s Virginians, rushed to Petersburg, reaching the city on the 18th.

On June 20, Federal forces moved south and west of the city to secure control of the Jerusalem Plank Road. From there Grant planned to seize the Weldon Railroad, Lee’s main supply line to North Carolina. That move started on the 22nd. Maneuvering in thick woods without guides or good maps, the II and VI corps quickly lost contact with each other after crossing the Jerusalem Plank Road. Seeing an opportunity, Mahone pushed three of his brigades — Weisiger’s and those of Brig. Gens. John C.C. Sanders and Ambrose R. Wright — through heavy foliage to drive the two Union divisions back beyond the Federal entrenchments on the Jerusalem Plank Road. Mahone’s troops took more than 1,700 prisoners, eight standards and four cannons.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to