Richmond Must Fall: The Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, October 1864

Notes

Introduction 1. Billings, History of the Tenth Massachusetts, 322; Walker, General Hancock, 275. 2. long, Jewel of Liberty, 188–94; McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 768–73. 3. long, Jewel of Liberty, 192; Harris, Lincoln’s Last Months, 16–17. 4. lincoln, Collected Works, 507. 5. See, e.g., nevins, Diary of Battle, 477. Colonel Charles S. Wainwright, an artillery officer in the Fifth Corps, heard rumors that McClellan planned to crush the South. 6. McClellan’s opposition to emancipation and conscription would have made it very difficult, if not impossible, for him to fill the army’s ranks. By 1864, approximately 100,000 african americans served under the U.S. flag. The loss of these troops would have severely complicated the war effort. McPherson, Negro’s Civil War, 223; long, Jewel of Liberty, 265–66. 7. long, Jewel of Liberty, 191–95. 8. nelson, Bullets, Ballots, and Rhetoric, 114. 9. Thompson, Thirteenth Regiment, 493. 10. nelson, Bullets, Ballots, and Rhetoric, 123–25. 11. ibid., 123–30, 132. 12. Chamberlaine, Memoirs of the Civil War, 109. 13. Brinton, Personal Memoirs, 239. 14. U.S. War department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (hereafter “o.R.”), Series 1, vol. 33, Part i, 394–95 (hereafter “o.R. 33(1): 394–95”). all o.R. citations refer to Series 1 unless otherwise stated. 15. ibid., 395. For further analysis of grant’s raiding strategy, see Beringer et al., Why the South Lost, 309–17; Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, 501–15; archer Jones, Civil War Command and Strategy, 181–86. 16. o.R. 33(1): 394–95. 17. For a discussion of grant’s strategy of simultaneous advances, see Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, 492. 18. See, e.g., Rafuse, Robert E. Lee, 253–54. 19. R. e. lee to g. W. C. lee, Feb. 28, 1863, in lee, Wartime Papers, 411. 20. R.e. lee to his wife, apr. 19, 1863, ibid., 438. 21. nelson, Bullets, Ballots, and Rhetoric, 117 (quoting the Richmond Examiner, aug. 31, 1864). 338 notes • 22. o.R. 38(5): 777. 23. New York Times, Sept. 3, 1864. 24. Richmond Examiner, Sept. 5, 1864. 25. Woodward, Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, 645. 26. See the New York World, oct. 28 and nov. 1, 1864. 27. Porter, Campaigning with Grant, 70. 28. grant, Personal Memoirs, vol. 2, 489. 29. Simon, Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, vol. 28, 409–10. 30. W. t. Sherman to his brother, oct. 1, 1862, in Sherman and Thorndike, Sherman Letters, 166. 31. Robert S. West, Lincoln’s Scapegoat General, 229–30. 32. Rev. J. William Jones, Personal Reminiscences, 40. 33. U. S. grant to H. W. Halleck, June 5, 1864, in Simon, Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, vol. 11, 19. 34. See Hattaway and and Jones, How the North Won, 587. 35. Historian earl J. Hess has described grant’s approach of continuous contact as “the only major innovation in grand tactics during the Civil War” other than the extensive use of temporary fieldworks (Hess, In the Trenches, 282–83). 36. lee to davis, Sept. 2, 1864, o.R. 42(3): 1228. 37. Wert, From Winchester to Cedar Creek, 142. 38. grant, Personal Memoirs, vol. 2, 337. 39. lee to Mitchell, oct. 24, 1864, o.R. 42(3): 1175–76. 40. Badeau, Military History, vol. 3, 115. Porter recalled that bridging equipment was collected in late May “in order to be prepared to cross the James River, if deemed best, and attack Richmond and Petersburg from the south side, and carry out the views expressed by grant in the beginning of the Wilderness campaign as to his movements in certain contingencies .” See Porter, Campaigning with Grant, 161. 41. excerpt from the New York World, oct. 19, 1864, reprinted in the Charleston Mercury , nov. 2, 1864. The article suggested that unless grant could flush lee out of Richmond through the capture of lynchburg, the campaign would end in failure. 42. on a late summer day in 1864, several dozen ragged soldiers rested near a farmhouse in the virginia countryside west of Richmond. The aroma of fresh bread filled the air. a Confederate cavalryman approached the group and asked for the commanding officer. a man named Fuller stepped forward. in reply to the cavalryman’s queries, Fuller claimed he and his men were conducting a reconnaissance up the James River. He even produced a paper authorizing the mission. The cavalryman...