CHAPTER V.

THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT OF THE ARMY OF THE JAMES.-THE BATTLE OF DRURY'S BLUFF.

The

THE Army of the James was composed of the Tenth and Eighteenth Corps, commanded respectively by Major-Generals Q. A. Gillmore and Wm. F. Smith, and a cavalry division commanded by Brigadier-General A. V. Kautz. Tenth Corps, drawn from the troops in South Carolina, consisted of three divisions commanded by Brigadier-Generals Terry, Turner, and Ames, and numbered, present for duty, 684 officers and 16,128 enlisted men of infantry, and 36 officers and 1,078 enlisted men of artillery, with 44 guns and 2 siege howitzers.

The Eighteenth Corps consisted of three divisions commanded by Brigadier-Generals Brooks, Weitzel, and Hinks, and numbered, present for duty, 653 officers and 14,325 enlisted men of infantry, and 25 officers and 987 enlisted men of artillery, with 36 guns. Hinks's division was composed of colored troops. Butler's infantry force was therefore 1,329 officers and 30,543 enlisted men of infantry, with 82 guns served by 61 officers and 2,065 enlisted men of artillery.

Kautz's cavalry numbered 97 officers and 2,804 enlisted men, with 6 guns. There was also a brigade of colored cavalry under Colonel West, some 1,800 strong.

General Butler had been instructed by Lieutenant-General Grant that Richmond was his objective point; that he was

to move at the same time as the Army of the Potomac, take City Point and that vicinity; intrench, concentrate all his troops for the field there as rapidly as possible, and operate on the south side of the James against Richmond, holding close to the south bank of the river as he advanced, and using every exertion to secure a footing as far up the river as possible; that his army and the Army of the Potomac were to co-operate. Should General Lee fall back upon Richmond, the Army of the Potomac would unite with the Army of the James. If he, Butler, should be able to invest Richmond on the south side so as to rest his left upon the James above the city, the junction of the two armies would preferably take place there. Under any circumstances it might be advisable to make the junction there, and if he, General Butler, should hear that the Army of the Potomac was advancing in that direction, or have reason to believe from the action of the enemy that they apprehended danger from that quarter, then he was to attack vigorously, and if he could not carry the city he would, at least, be able to detain a considerable force of the enemy there.

On the 28th of April Butler was directed to move on the night of the 4th of May, so as to be far up the James River by daylight of the 5th; and to push from that time with all his might for the accomplishment of the object before him.

The two infantry corps of Butler's army were concentrated at Yorktown and Gloucester, on the York River, when the time for movement was near at hand, in order to give the impression that he was to advance upon Richmond on the line taken by General McClellan in 1862.

On the night of the 4th of May they embarked on transports, and descending the York River moved up the James early on the 5th, convoyed by Rear-Admiral S. P. Lee's fleet of five armored ships and a large number of gunboats. On the afternoon of the 5th the fleet of transports reached Ber

muda Hundred Neck, at the confluence of the James and Appomattox rivers, and by morning of the 6th of May the troops had disembarked.

Brigadier-General Wilde's brigade of colored troops had landed at Fort Powhatan, on the south bank of the James, and at Wilson's wharf, some five miles below, on the north bank. General Hink's division of colored troops (of which General Wilde's brigade was a part) landed at City Point, at the mouth of the Appomattox, on the south side. His division was about 5,000 strong.

On the morning of the 5th of May Colonel West, with his colored brigade, moved up the Peninsula to cross the Chickahominy and unite with General Butler, which he accomplished.

On the same morning General Kautz set out from Suffolk to cut the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad at the crossings of the Nottoway River, Stony Creek, and Rowanty Creek, with a view to delay the arrival at Richmond of troops on their way from the South, as well as to seriously impair the roads as lines of supply to the Army of Northern Virginia.

On the morning of the 6th the troops on Bermuda Hundred Neck advanced some six miles from their landing-place, and taking up a position at a narrow part of the neck, three miles across, with their right on the James, at Trent's reach, and their left on the Appomattox, near Port Walthall, intrenched there, Smith on the right, Gillmore on the left. About two and a half miles in front of this line was the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad, and running near it the pike between those towns. A brigade was sent out to these roads, which returned to the main body after having encountered some force of the enemy at Port Walthall Junction, about six miles from Petersburg and sixteen from Richmond. This force was a part of Brigadier-General Hagood's South Carolina brigade, which had just arrived from South

Carolina, having been halted at that point by General Pickett, who still remained in command at Petersburg.

The defensive works of Richmond consisted of a series of field forts encircling the city at a distance from it varying from a mile to a mile and a half. Outside of these, on the north side of the James, there was a connected enveloping line of batteries and infantry intrenchments, in most places a mile beyond the forts, in others one and a half or two miles beyond them. This line crossed the James two and a half miles below Richmond, and then extended westerly to within a mile and a half of the river above the city. Beyond this again there was, on the north side of the river, a disconnected line of intrenchments, part of which was occupied in 1862, varying in distance from the line already described from half a mile to three miles. It abutted on the James at Chapin's Bluff, some seven miles by the road below the city.

At Chapin's Bluff and the bluff a little higher up on the opposite side of the James (Drury's) were the batteries, with sea-coast guns, to oppose the passage of the river.

There were also several gunboats and torpedo-boats assembled for the defence of the river, which above the mouth of the Appomattox was very narrow, and as high up as Drury's Bluff very winding; the width above the Appomattox varied from six hundred to one thousand feet, in some places being even still narrower. The armored vessels of Rear-Admiral Lee's fleet could not ascend above Trent's Reach, the depth on its bar not admitting their passage. The right of Butler's army, intrenched on Bermuda Hundred Neck, rested on the James just below the bar, which was some five miles below Drury's Bluff by land and nine by water.

Torpedoes had been planted on the bars of the James, some of them to be exploded from the land, others by contact with the vessel. Notwithstanding the great care used

in dragging for them as Admiral Lee's fleet ascended the river, the gunboat Commodore Jones was destroyed by a torpedo, one-half the crew being killed and wounded.

From Drury's Bluff a line of intrenchments extended westward two and a half miles, so as to inclose both the Richmond and Petersburg pike and railroad, and then ran northerly. This line of intrenchments was, to use General Gillmore's language, judiciously located, and of great strength naturally and artificially, with deep ditches, and arranged for both artillery and infantry. An advanced line of intrenchments, equally strong as the one just described, left the interior line near Drury's Bluff and ran in a southwest direction, crossing Proctor's Creek at the railroad crossing about a mile in front of the interior line and resting its right on Wooldridge's Hill.

For the defence of Petersburg, as early as 1862, a circle of strong redans or batteries, connected by infantry parapets of high profile had been erected some two miles outside of the city.

The troops for the defence of these two cities were few in number on the 1st of May. Besides the artillery for the heavy guns at Chapin's and Drury's bluffs, and the field artillery of the intrenchments of Richmond, the effective force of infantry there (enlisted men present for duty) did not probably exceed 6,000, and in this number is included Hunton's brigade at Chapin's Bluff, and Bushrod Johnson's and Gracie's brigades, which I suppose to have been there by that time. They were there, certainly, on the 7th of May, but the information concerning the force there on the 1st of May is very defective. The number 6,000 does not include the clerks and employes and others in Richmond, who had been organized as military companies to be used in exigencies. At Petersburg General Pickett had a Virginia regiment with some artillery, and, under his command,