Existing comment:
1864 Overland Campaign:
The fourth spring of the war began when Union armies launched a series of offensives across unconquered portions of the South. The action in Virginia included three separate campaigns, each defined by aggressive advances from Union commanders. While smaller armies fought in the Shenandoah Valley and around the Bermuda Hundred region south of Richmond, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant sent the largest Northern army against Gen. Robert E. Lee's Confederates. The ensuing series of battles is known today as the Overland Campaign.
Costly stalemates at the battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania delayed Grant's progress. Confederates next blocked his southward drive at the North Anna River, and then along Totopotomoy Creek at the end of May 1864. Finally the armies collided at Cold Harbor, just eight miles from Richmond. There Grant's headlong assaults against Lee's entrenchments on June 1 and June 3 failed. Despite enormous losses, the Union army retained the initiative and marched south to Petersburg, where Grant began the long process of cutting Richmond's supply lines.
Wilderness May 5-6
Two days of close-quarters action in the thick woods west of Fredericksburg produced nearly 30,000 casualties and inaugurated a grueling campaign that saw the armies sweep across most of central Virginia.
Spotsylvania May 8-21
Grant ignored the indecisive results of the Wilderness and pressed southward toward more open ground. The Confederate army blocked him on May 8. For two weeks over 150,000 men fought for an advantage. The terrible combat at the Bloody Angle on May 12 defined this period and reenforced the campaign's grim tone set at the Wilderness the week before.
North Anna River May 23-26
When the Union army moved away from Spotsylvania, Confederate infantry fell back to the next defensible ground, south of the North Anna River. Actions on May 23 and 24 weakened Grant's momentum and forced him to look toward another movement to continue his campaign.
Totopotomoy Creek May 28-30
Hard marching and determination took the Union army away from North Anna and closer to Richmond. Just a dozen miles from the city, this creek saw the next collision of the armies. Aggressive probes up and down the creek valley ignited many small battles and proved to General Grant that the Confederates again blocked his direct path to Richmond.
Cold Harbor May31-June 12
The armies revisited ground first contested during McClellan's 1862 campaign. This time the lines extended for nearly seven miles, with action beginning at the Old Cold Harbor crossroads and extending north and south from there. A major attack by the Federal army on June 1 partly succeeded; the larger follow-up attack on June 3 failed badly. The soldiers endured nine more days of sniping and misery in the entrenchments before both armies marched south toward Petersburg, ending the "overland" portion of the 1864 campaign. |