Death On the Highway: Part II: Summer and Fall of 1864.

During May and early June of 1864, in what later became known as the Overland Campaign, the Union Army of the Potomac of over 101,000 officers and men, commanded by Major General George Gordon Meade but directed by overall Union Army commander Lieutenant General Ulysses Grant, attempted to batter its way through the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia of over 65,000 officers and men, commanded by General Robert Edward Lee. After a month-long series of battles and engagements, which caused severe casualties to both armies (the Army of the Potomac alone suffered over 80,000 killed, wounded, and missing), Grant and Meade realized that frontal assaults against the Confederate field fortifications were not as successful as they had hoped. They then attempted a series of maneuvers to turn the right flank of the Confederate defensive line; Lee adroitly countered each attempt to outflank his army by continually sliding to his right using interior lines of march. By the middle of June, both armies, now bloodied and exhausted, had sidled southeastwardly ever closer to the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, still fiercely defended by the out-numbered and out-resourced southern soldiers, and stood poised facing each other on the north bank of the James River. In a daring and complex operation, Grant and Meade pulled the Army of the Potomac out of its entrenchments and, using the cloak of night and brilliant logistical planning and coordination, moved the Union soldiers over temporary pontoon bridges built by the army engineers to reach the south bank of the James River to attack the city of Petersburg, the back-door to Richmond, before General Lee was even aware of the movement. However, because of poor tactical employment of the assaulting troops and because of the enhanced combat power provided by field fortifications, the Dimmock Line, built in 1862-1863, a relative handful of Confederate soldiers were able to resist the Union attacks and prevented a breakthrough, until enough reinforcements could be rushed to their aid.

Thus began the Petersburg-Richmond Campaign, which would last over nine months. After an initial period of resumed frontal assaults against the Confederate fortified lines (the First assault on Petersburg, the battle of the Jerusalem Plank Road, and the battle of the Crater), all of which were bloodily repulsed by the stalwart southern soldiers, the Union commanders changed their tactics; again, they saw as their only chance towards victory the capture of the Confederate supply lines coming in from the south and southwest into the beleaguered cities of Petersburg and Richmond. Specifically, two railroad lines fed troops and food and supplies to Petersburg: the first was the Petersburg Railroad (sometimes known as the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad or just the Weldon Railroad) coming from North Carolina, and the second was the Southside Railroad, connecting Petersburg to Lynchburg, Virginia. [A third rail line, the Richmond and Danbury Railroad, was going directly, as the name implied, to the city of Richmond, bypassing Petersburg.] Disrupting the flow of traffic over these railroads would affect the flow of food and supplies into Petersburg and thereby the ability to resist the expected Union attacks. In two separate actions in August of 1864, the battles of Globe Tavern and of Reams’s Station, a part of the powerful Army of the Potomac extended its reach to its left and cut the vulnerable line of the Petersburg Railroad and the parallel Halifax Road (now VA 604). Even though the Union losses in men were twice the Confederate losses, the terrain was captured and secured and the Union entrenchments were lengthened to protect the newly-won territory. With one of his two crucial supply lines lost, General Lee extemporized to save the situation as best as he could: he ordered the food and supplies to be brought north to the Petersburg Railroad station of Stony Creek, Virginia, there to be off-loaded and placed into wagons; the wagons then made a cross-country trek northwest to the town of Dinwiddie Court House, where they reached the Boydton Plank Road (Route 1) and continued their journey to Petersburg (a difficult journey of over 16 miles). The makeshift supply line over the Boydton Plank Road (Route 1) and the Southside Railroad were now the only lifelines for the Confederates at Petersburg. They became the next targets in the Union offensive scheme.

In Part III, I will briefly talk about the little-known Beefsteak Raid in September of 1864; this raid departed and ended along the Boydton Plank Road (Route 1).