VA -- North Anna Battlefield:
- Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.
- Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon
underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.
- Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.
- Accessing as Spider: The system has identified your IP as being a spider.
IP Address: 3.143.168.172 -- Domain: Amazon Technologies
I love well-behaved spiders! They are, in fact, how most people find my site. Unfortunately, my network has a limited bandwidth and pictures take up bandwidth. Spiders ask for lots and lots of pages and chew up lots and lots of bandwidth which slows things down considerably for regular folk. To counter this, you'll see all the text on the page but the images are being suppressed. Also, some system options like merges are being blocked for you.
Note: Permission is NOT granted for spiders, robots, etc to use the site for AI-generation purposes. I'm sure you're thrilled by your ability to make revenue from my work but there's nothing in that for my human users or for me.
If you are in fact human, please email me at guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can check if your designation was made in error. Given your number of hits, that's unlikely but what the hell.
- Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]
|
[1] NANNA_050411_005.JPG
|
[2] NANNA_050411_038.JPG
|
[3]
 NANNA_050411_055.JPG
|
[4] NANNA_050411_089.JPG
|
[5]
NANNA_050411_118.JPG
|
[6]
NANNA_050411_133.JPG
|
[7]
NANNA_050411_149.JPG
|
[8]
NANNA_050411_164.JPG
|
- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- NANNA_050411_055.JPG: These well-preserved trench lines were occupied by Confederate defenders during the battle. Ambrose Burnside's men had been told to cross the river but we held back because of skirmishes with Confederate troops and sharpshooters, giving the Confederates time to complete their earthworks.
The first unit of the Union Ninth Corps to cross the North Anna was Brigadier General James H. Ledlie's brigade. His 1,500 infantrymen were ready to advanced by 3:00pm, despite having been soaked up to their armpits while crossing the river. Unfortunately for the Federals, one of the worst generals in the Union army commanded them. Ledlie had commanded the brigade for only seven days and had obtained little knowledge of his men. Worse, the general had consumed a large amount of whiskey and was dreadfully drunk when he led his men into battle. When he approached the Confederate trenches, Ledlie routed. The survivors hurriedly returned to the relative safety of Ledlie's main battle line.
Ledlie, still drunk, decided to try harder. Against the orders of his division commander, the drunken general ordered his unsupported brigade to assault another portion of the Confederate trenches. Mahone's Confederates allowed the Federals to advance well into the field and, when Ledlie's soldiers were within two hundred yards, opened on them with a deadly artillery and rifle fire. As rain from a heavy thunderstorm burst into their faces, Ledlie's men took shelter from the Confederate fire in a ravine.
"After proceeding a short distance, all semblance of a line became lost. It was just a wild tumultuous rush where the more reckless were far to the front and the cautious ones scattered along back, but still coming on... Many of the Confederate soldiers stood upon their breastworks and called out in a tantalizing manner, 'Come on Yank, come on to Richmond' ." -- Captain John Anderson, 57th Massachusetts Infantry
As the imperiled Union brigade huddled in the ravine, General Mahone recognized that their bold assault was unsupported and ordered General Harris to send a regiment from the Confederate trenches to attack them. At 6:45pm, the 12th Mississippi came out of its earthworks and ran down the slope, firing a volley at point blank range. Simultaneously, the 8th and 11th Alabama hit the exposed Union right flank. Ledlie's men broke for the safety of the trees behind them. Several Union commanders tried to rally their men but to no avail. The most prominent among them, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Chandler of the 57th Massachusetts, fell mortally wounded into the muddy ravine. Colonel Merry B. Harris, commanding the 12th Mississippi, ordered Chandler brought into the Confederate line, where he died only hours later.
- NANNA_050411_118.JPG: This stop indicates the location of the Inverted V.
You are now standing in the tip of the famous "Inverted V" position constructed by Lee's army along the North Anna River. The trenches to your left continued to the Little River, while those on the right anchored on a bend in the North Anna below Hanover Junction. This area was held by Brigadier General Ambrose "Rans" Wright's Georgia brigade which assisted in repelling Ledlie's brigade on the evening of May 24. The 2nd Georgia Infantry Battalion of Wright's brigade held back the left flank of the Union line until Colonel Harris' 12th Mississippi Infantry crushed the Union center.
- NANNA_050411_133.JPG: Down there is the North Anna River
- NANNA_050411_149.JPG: This is the Ox Ford Road which helped the Confederates reinforce their positions.
- NANNA_050411_164.JPG: This monument honors all of the valiant men who lost their lives on the battlefields of the North Anna, May 23-26, 1864.
"No more shall the war cry sever, or the winding rivers be red; they banish our anger forever when they laurel the graves of our dead! Under the sod and the dew, waiting the judgement day, love and tears for the blue, tears and love for the gray."
- Wikipedia Description: Battle of North Anna
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Battle of North Anna was fought from May 23 to May 26, 1864, as part of Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign against Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. It was fought in central Virginia as small actions in a number of locales, rather than a general engagement between the armies, so individual actions are sometimes named directly: Telegraph Road Bridge and Jericho Mill (for actions on May 23); Ox Ford, Quarles Mill, and Hanover Junction (May 24).
Background:
After the fighting at Spotsylvania Court House, on the night of May 20, 1864, Grant sent the II Corps under Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock from Spotsylvania to Milford Station, where he was to take a position on the west bank of the Mattaponi River and attack the Confederates wherever he encountered them. Grant was hoping that Lee would take the bait of an isolated Union corps and attack it, drawing the Confederates out into the open, where they could be attacked.
Union cavalry forces under Brig. Gen. Alfred Torbert drove out a small force of Confederate infantry at Milford Station. Confederate cavalry under Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton warned General Lee of this movement. Lee realized that it was merely the beginning of another Union attempt to turn his right flank and get between his army and Richmond. He began to shift his troops to the south bank of the Po River, but when the remaining Union forces— V Corps under Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren, IX Corps under Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside (who was now assigned to the Army of the Potomac under the direct command of Maj. Gen. George G. Meade), and VI Corps under Maj. Gen. Horatio G. Wright—withdrew from Spotsylvania on May 21, Lee ordered a retreat south to the North Anna River. Grant's original plan to trap Lee was foiled, primarily because Grant grew nervous about leaving Hancock in an isolated position and he moved the remainder of the Army of the Potomac to the southeast to join Hancock before Lee could strike.
Battle:
Lee's army reached the North Anna on May 22. For the first time in the campaign, he received sizable reinforcements, including Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett's division from the James River defense against the ineffective Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler and Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge's command from the Shenandoah Valley, altogether about 9,000 men. While this was a positive development, it was counterbalanced by bad news for the Army of Northern Virginia. Many of the senior leaders of the army were out of commission: Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill, who had become sick with an unidentified illness at the Wilderness returned to duty, but was still sick; Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell was exhausted from his ordeal at Spotsylvania; Maj. Gen. James Longstreet had been wounded during the Battle of the Wilderness, and Lee himself suddenly suffered a debilitating attack of diarrhea. The only corps commander who was ready for duty was Maj. Gen. Richard H. Anderson, but he was recently promoted and inexperienced in corps-level command.
The Confederate position was skillfully laid out behind (south of) the steep bank of the North Anna and well fortified with earthworks. It was a five-mile line that formed an inverted "V" shape, sometimes called a "hog snout line", with its apex on the river at Ox Ford, the only defensible river crossing in the area. On the western line of the V, reaching southwest to New Market, was the corps of A.P. Hill; on the east were Anderson and Ewell, the latter as far to the southeast as Hanover Junction.
The Army of the Potomac arrived at the North Anna on May 23. Warren began crossing at the undefended Jericho Mill, northwest of Ox Ford, but at 6 p.m., A.P. Hill attacked in an attempt to drive the V Corps into the river. His attack was clumsy and unsuccessful and Warren was able to cross the river easily, entrenching directly facing Hill's line. Lee was furious with Hill for his piecemeal attacks; if Hill had attacked with his entire corps at the river crossing, Warren might have been defeated. Lee scolded him: "Why did you not do as [Stonewall] Jackson would have done, thrown your whole force upon those people and driven them back?"
On May 24, Hancock's II Corps attacked at Chesterfield Bridge, east of Ox Ford, crossed the river, and positioned his corps facing Anderson and Ewell. Burnside's IX Corps was in the center. His IX Corps attempted to cross at Quarles Mill, between Ox Ford and Jericho Mill, but resistance was stiff and Burnside abandoned the effort, remaining north of the river, facing the apex of the V.
For the first time, Grant realized that Lee had outmaneuvered him. His army had been moved forward so quickly that it had broken into three widely separated parts, surrounding the V. A unit moving from one flank to reinforce the other would have to cross the North Anna River twice. Lee could attack in either direction and overwhelm either Hancock or Warren, with the other unable to support him in a timely manner. Then, the Confederates could swing back on internal lines and attack the other side. The most likely candidate for an attack was Hancock's II Corps to the east. However, Lee's illness meant that he was on his back in his tent for much of this time and, given his lack of capable subordinates, was unable to arrange an aggressive attack against either Union corps.
Grant briefly probed the Confederate line and contemplated a double envelopment, but realized that the defense was too strong. He decided not to attack and there was only light skirmishing on May 25 and May 26. Grant ordered Brig. Gen. James H. Wilson's cavalry division to cross the river and move west, attempting to deceive Lee into thinking that the Union army intended to envelop the Confederate left flank. The cavalry destroyed stretches of the Virginia Central Railroad during this movement, but had no significant enemy contact. After dark on May 26, Grant withdrew to move 20 miles southeast to the important crossroads of Cold Harbor. He was encouraged by his progress against Lee and wrote to his chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, in Washington:
Lee's army is really whipped. The prisoners we now take show it, and the actions of his Army show it unmistakably. A battle with them outside of entrenchments cannot be had. I may be mistaken but I feel that our success over Lee's army is already insured.
Aftermath:
Grant's optimism and his reluctance to assault strong defensive lines would be severely tested in the upcoming Battle of Cold Harbor. In the meantime, North Anna had proved to be a relatively minor affair when compared to other Civil War battles. Union casualties for the four days were 186 killed, 792 wounded, 165 missing or captured, for a total of 1,143. Confederate casualties were not recorded, but due to the bloody fighting between A.P. Hill and Warren, it is probable they suffered around 2,000 casualties.
- Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.)
I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com
and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
- Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
- Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].
