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on Sunday evening, october 23, grant met with Meade and Butler separately to discuss the upcoming operation.1 The next day, he issued official orders for Meade to launch an offensive to seize, hold, and fortify the South Side Railroad on Thursday, october 27. Following its secondary role in the late September offensive , Meade’s army would lead the upcoming operation and Butler’s army of the James would support. once Meade gained the railroad, grant wanted the army to construct fortifications extending back to the ninth Corps lines at Peebles’ Farm. Such an effort would form continuous, connected Union works around much of Petersburg.2 grant did not seek an assault. instead, he wanted to seize ground and force lee to react. and, like his previous efforts, grant’s new plan had a second prong. on Monday, he discussed the upcoming offensive with general Butler and, in a subsequent dispatch, ordered him “to demonstrate against the enemy in your front, substantially as we talked the matter over last evening and as you proposed” and “feel out to the right beyond the front, and, if you can, turn it.”3 as in recent operations, grant planned to send two columns against the Confederate defenses, one south of Petersburg and another far to the north against the Richmond defenses. in September, the primary blow landed in the Richmond sector, with a secondary push later at Petersburg contingent on the results of the first. now grant would try something different. His attacking columns would hit lee’s defenses simultaneously. in addition, the weight of the column in the Petersburg sector would be much greater than those before. Meade, his staff, and his corps commanders had hard work ahead.4 in earlier operations, the army of the Potomac had often moved around, instead of through, the rebel lines. now, in late october, Meade did not stray from this formula. He sought to bypass the new rebel fortifications barring the way to the railroad. These works began at the southwest corner of the dimmock line, near Petersburg’s lead Works, and stretched southwest along the Boydton Plank Road toward Hatcher’s Run. Meade did not know the length and strength of these rebel trenches, however. Without complete knowledge of what lay ahead, the necessary routes, marching 129 Chapter 6 Plans for the Sixth offensive • 130 richmond must fall distances, and force strengths remained unknowable. accordingly, Meade’s success would rely on the quality of Union intelligence. “we are completing heavy works” The Confederates had begun constructing the Boydton Plank Road trenches as early as September 16.5 in its nascent stages, the works stretched approximately four miles southwest from Battery 45 on the dimmock line to the Harman Road near the dabney house. They ran parallel to and east of the Plank Road and consisted of long sections of ditches and parapets interrupted occasionally by small redans. This new rebel line was built for mobile defense. its proximity to the Boydton Plank Road allowed Confederates to shuttle their limited forces to threatened points. The open redans adorning the line facilitated the rapid deployment of artillery arriving from distant points along the trenches or from rear areas. The Confederate works contrasted with their Union counterparts. over the past several months, Union engineers had concentrated their efforts on constructing enclosed forts along their lines. Such forts, carefully sited to ensure deadly, interlocking fields of fire, could not be manned as rapidly as the open Confederate works. However, their inherent strength allowed the Unionists to limit the force manning the fortifications and to free large numbers for mobile operations.6 The Confederates had traced the Boydton Plank trench line down to Hatcher’s Run, a meandering stream girded by banks crammed with impenetrable vegetation , which provided a logical endpoint. The stream flowed southeast and then south, eventually joining gravelly Run to form Rowanty Creek. This stream network offered the Confederates a natural obstacle of formidable strength, a deep ditch that yielded few crossings Wade Hampton’s cavalry occupied the defense line south of the dabney house. in october, his command consisted of two divisions, one under South Carolinian Matthew Butler and the other led by virginian William “Rooney” lee, the army commander’s son, as well as James dearing’s unassigned brigade, horse artillery under Major Preston Chew, and several hundred dismounted men. Matthew Butler ’s division at Petersburg contained two brigades led by Hugh K. aiken’s South Carolinians and georgians commanded by Pierce Young. Rooney...

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