HANCOCK'S FIGHT AT REAMS'S STATION. 593 noeuver, and easily baffled it, flank- | 8,000) men, and 5 guns. Hill's loss was also heavy, but considerably smaller. ing the flanking column and routing it, with a net loss of 302 on our part, and at least 1,200 to the enemy, of whose dead he buried 211, while he took 500 prisoners. He had lost in this entire movement 4,455 menmost of them prisoners-while the enemy had lost scarcely half that number; but he had lost and we had gained the Weldon road. Hancock, returned from the north. of the James, had moved rapidly to the Weldon road in the rear of Warren. Striking" it at Reams's station, he had been busily tearing it up for two or three days; when his cavalry gave warning that the enemy in force were at hand. Their first blow fell on Miles's division, on our right, and was promptly repulsed; but Hill ordered Heth, under a heavy fire of artillery, to try again, and at all events carry the position; which he ultimately did at the fourth charge, capturing three batteries. Hancock ordered Gibbon's division to retake it; but they failed to do so. Miles, rallying a part of his scattered division, and fighting it admirably, recovered part of his lost ground and one of his captured batteries. Gibbon's division, assailed by a force of dismounted cavalry, was easily driven from its breastworks; but the enemy, attempting to follow up his success, was checked and repelled by a heavy flank fire from our dismounted cavalry, posted on the left. Though but four miles from Warren's position, no rëenforcements, owing to various blunders, reached Hancock till after he had been forced to retreat, abandoning Reams's station, after a total loss of 2,400 (out of "1 Aug. 21. VOL. II.-38 Warren's hold on the road had become too strong to be shaken, and there ensued a pause of over a month; during which the Rebels planned and executed a smart raid on our cattleyard at Coggin's Point on the James; running off 2,500 beeves at no cost but that of fatigue. The calm was broken at last by Grant, who ordered an advance by Warren on the left, to cover one more determined by Butler on the right. Gen. Warren pushed westward " with two divisions of his own corps and two of the 9th, under Parke, with Gregg's cavalry in advance; reaching the Squirrel Level road, and carrying two or three small works at different points. There was fighting along our new front throughout this and the following day; we holding the newly gained ground and intrenching on it; our losses in the movement having been 2,500; those of the enemy probably less, including Gen. Dunnovan, killed. The ground thus taken was promptly joined by proper works to Warren's former position across the railroad. Gen. Butler, in his turn, crossing the James, advanced with the 10th corps, now commanded by Birney, and the 18th, now under Ord, and struck" the enemy's outpost below Chapin's farm, known as Fort Harrison, which he assaulted and took, with 15 guns, and a considerable portion of the enemy's intrenchments. He attempted to follow up his blow with the capture of Fort Gilmer, which was next in order; but was repulsed by Maj. Gen. Field, 'Sept. 29. 78 Oct. 1. 79 HANCOCK ADVANCES TO HATCHER'S RUN. 595 with a loss of 300. On our side, Gen. | Charles City and Williamsburg roads Ord was wounded, and Brig.-Gen. Burnham killed. Fort Harrison was so important to Richmond, that Field resolved to retake it, but deferred the assault till next morning, when he hurled three brigades against it on one side, while Gen. Hoke charged on the other. These assaults failed to be made simultaneously, and of course were both repulsed with slaughter; as they probably would have been at any rate. But, a few days thereafter, the Rebels surprised at dawn our right, held by Kautz's cavalry, which had been pushed up the Charles City road, to within 4 or 5 miles of Richmond, and drove it; capturing 9 guns and perhaps 500 prisoners. A desperate fight ensued, in which the Rebel Gen. Gregg, of Texas, was killed. Both sides claimed a clear advantage, but neither obtained much, save in the capture of Fort Harrison; while the losses of each had been quite heavy. Butler pushed forward a strong reconnoissance on the 13th, and assaulted some new works that the enemy had constructed on a part of their front; but they were firmly held, and the attack was not long persisted in. 80 on our left, the Army of the Potomac, leaving only men enough to hold its works before Petersburg, and taking three days' rations, marched " suddenly by the left against the enemy's works covering Hatcher's run and the Boydton plank-road. In other words, Meade's army was here pushed forward to find and turn the right flank of the enemy. Starting before dawn, the 9th corps, under Parke, on the right, with the 5th, under Warren, on its left, struck, at 9 A. M., the right of the Rebel intrenchments, which rested on the east bank of Hatcher's run; assaulting, but failing to carry them. Warren thereupon undertook, as had been arranged, to come in on its flank by a turning movement; while Hancock, who had simultaneously advanced still farther to our left, and had found but a small force to dispute his pas sage of Hatcher's run where he struck it, moved north-westward by Dabney's mill, gained the Boydton plankroad, and pushed up to strike the Lynchburg railroad in the enemy's rear. Gregg, with his cavalry division, was thrown out on Hancock's left. Hancock had reached, with little opposition, the Boydton plank-road, and was pushing farther, when, at 1 P. M., he was halted by an order from Meade. Warren, upon the failure of Parke to carry the intrenchment in his front, had pushed Crawford's division, strengthened by Ayres's brigade, across the run, with orders to move down the north bank of that stream, so as to turn the Rebel defenses. Hancock, hitherto several miles distant, it was intended to connect with by this movement. 80 Oct. 27. Crawford, with great difficulty, advanced as ordered, through woods and swamps all but impenetrable, and in which many of his men were lost, while regiments were hopelessly separated from their division, until he was directly on the flank of the Rebel intrenchments; when he, too, was halted by Warren to give time for consultation with Meade the country having proved entirely dif. ferent from what was expected. Hancock was now but a mile from Crawford's left; but the dense woods left them in entire ignorance of each other's position. And now, of course, as Hancock was extending his right (Gibbon's division, now under Egan) to find Crawford's left, and receiving a mistaken report that the connection had been made, though a space of 1,200 yards still intervened, Lee threw forward Hill to strike Hancock's right and roll it up after the established fashion. Hill's leading division, under Heth, crossed the run, making for Hancock, and, following a forest path, swept across in front of Crawford's skirmishers and across the interval between Crawford and Hancock, without clearly knowing where it was. Arriving opposite Hancock's position, Hill, seeing but unseen, silently deployed in the woods, and, at 4 P. M., charged; striking Mott's division, whose first notice of an enemy's approach was a volley of musketry. The brigade (Pierce's) thus charged gave way; a battery was lost; and, for a moment, there was a prospect of another Reams's station disaster. Hancock of course instantly sent word to Egan to change front and hurry to the rescue; but Egan had already done that at the first sound of Hill's guns; and, as the enemy, emerging into the cleared space along the Boydton road, pushed across that road in pursuit of Mott's fugitives, firing and yelling, Egan struck them in flank with two brigades, sweeping down the road, retaking the lost guns, and making over 1,000 prisoners. The disconcerted Rebels retreated as rapidly as they had advanced; but, over 200 of them, fleeing in utter confusion toward the run, fell into Crawford's lines, and were captured. Could Crawford have instantly comprehended the situation and advanced, their loss must have been far greater. Warren was with Meade in the rear of Crawford's line, when Hill's blow was struck, and at once ordered up Ayres to the support of Hancock; but night fell before Ayres could get up. Simultaneously with the charge on Hancock's front, Wade Hampton, with five brigades of cavalry, charged his left and rear, guarded by Gregg's cavalry; and Hancock was required to send all his available force to Gregg's support. Hampton persisted till after dark, but gained no ground, and was ultimately beaten off. Hancock's total loss by the day's operations was 1,500; that of the enemy was greater. Hancock was now authorized by Meade either to withdraw or to hold on and attack next morning, if he could do so safely with the aid of Ayres and Crawford. Being short of ammunition, with no certainty that any more would reach him, or that Ayres and Crawford could bring up their divisions in season for the attack that would naturally be made on him at daybreak, Hancock pru END OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1864-LOSSES. 597 dently decided to draw off," and, at | right, being in the nature of a feint, 10 P. M., commenced the movement; had effected nothing but a distraction which ended with our whole army of the enemy's attention, and this at back in its intrenchments before considerable cost. Petersburg, and thence westward to Warren's works, covering not only the Weldon railroad, but the Vaughan and Squirrel Level highways. Thus, while our several advances on the left had been achieved at heavy cost, the following movement, wherein we had the advantage in the fighting and in losses, gave us no foot of ground whatever. Here ended, practically, for the year 1864, Grant's determined, persistent, sanguinary campaign against Lee's army and Richmond: and the following tabular statement of the losses endured by the Army of the Potomac, having been furnished by one of Gen. Grant's staff to the author of "Grant and his Campaigns," can not be plausibly suspected of exag Butler's advance on our farthest gerating them: Tabular Statement of Casualties in the Army of the Potomac, from May 5, 1864, to November 1, 1864. NOTE-The first line of the above table includes several days' desperate fighting at Spottsylvania, in which our losses were fully 10,000. Our actual losses in the Wilderness were ratner under than over 20,000, and at Spottsylvania just about as many. These corrections, however, make no difference in the aggregates given above. Whether the foregoing returns of losses do or do not include those of Burnside's (9th) corps before it was formally incorporated with the Army of the Potomac, is not stated; but, as they do not include the losses in the Army of the James, it is safe to conclude that the killed, wounded, and missing of 1864, in our armies operating directly for the reduction of Richmond, reached the appalling aggregate of 100,000 men. If we assume that, of nearly 54,000 wounded "Heth says that, if he had remained, he would have been attacked next morning by and 24,000 missing (most of the latter prisoners, of whom few of the able-bodied were exchanged during that year), 30,000 recovered of their wounds, or were recaptured, or escaped from the enemy, it leaves our net losses in that campaign not less than 70,000. The enemy's net loss, including 15,373 prisoners, after deducting the wounded who recovered and returned to their colors, we may safely estimate at 40,000, though they would doubtless make it less. Dur15,000 infantry and Hampton's cavalry. His lack of ammunition compelled withdrawal. |