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A Melancholy Affair | |||
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NARRATIVE ACCOUNTS
First Battle of the Weldon Railroad June 23, 1864On June 23, 1864, during the siege of Petersburg, a military engagement occurred that has been referred to as an "incredible blunder" and “melancholy affair” for the Vermont Brigade and for all of Vermont. The commander of the Vermont Brigade, Brigadier General Lewis A. Grant, told an audience after the war that this disaster “was his saddest experience of the war.”
This little known battle took place on a sultry Thursday afternoon six miles south of Petersburg, Virginia, along the Petersburg & Weldon Railroad. It involved troops of the Vermont Brigade (the Second Brigade, Second Division) of the VI Army Corps of the Army of the Potomac, and is known as the First Battle of the Weldon Railroad, representing one of the early battles of the Jerusalem Plank Road. The Confederates referred to it as the Battle of the Gurley Farm. Although few remember it now, with the possible exception of the stand of the Vermont Brigade at the Brock and Orange Plank Roads in the Wilderness, this engagement was the greatest misfortune to befall any Vermont unit in the Civil War. Confederate General William Mahone termed it a “minor affair.” In fact, there are only “minor affairs” to the generals, politicians and historians. To the infantrymen involved and their families back home, no battle is minor. Obviously if you are a casualty in any battle, large or small, it takes on great personal importance. One can be sure that for the 436 Vermont officers and enlisted men from the Vermont Brigade who were killed, wounded or captured on June 23, the engagement was anything but “minor.” The standard Vermont view of the First Battle of the Weldon Railroad was provided by George G. Benedict in his two volume history Vermont in the Civil War (1888). In an article in The Vermonter in 1903, he summarized: ...On the 23rd of June, 1864, in an expedition from Petersburg to cut the Weldon Railroad, [the Vermont Brigade] suffered its greatest loss by capture. That day four hundred and one men of the Fourth and Eleventh regiments were cut off and captured by greatly superior forces of Mahone's division. Of that number two hundred and thirty-two died in the prison pens of Andersonville, Ga. and Columbia, S.C. Descriptions of this engagement at the Weldon Railroad were given in the newspapers and military reports of the day. The Petersburg Express ran a detailed account the day following the battle. This was reprinted in the Richmond newspapers and across the South. Thus, on June 30, readers in North Carolina learned from The Wilmington Daily Journal: The Petersburg Express gives the following account of the fight which took place on Thursday evening, the 23d inst. near the Weldon Railroad in the vicinity of the six-mile house [Globe Tavern]: Gen. Mahone was speedily dispatched, at the head of a body of troops, to drive the rascals off. Upon approaching the spot about one hundred and fifty of Grant's horsemen were discovered displacing rails and removing sills. They fled precipitately upon the appearance of our forces; but it was soon ascertained that there was a heavy body of infantry in the woods, east of the tracts, massed for the purpose of supporting the cavalry.
Gen. Mahone threw forward a heavy line of skirmishers, engaged the attention of the blue coats, and then put into execution one of those flanking movements for which he has become somewhat noted during this campaign. About twilight Perry's brigade, now commanded by Gen. [Joseph] Finnegan [sic], succeeded in swinging around, and brought up in rear of the enemy. A volley or two in the rear put the enemy to thinking, and another volley or two brought about a very lively double-quick on their part. We succeeded in securing only four hundred and eighty-three of the invaders, the remainders running so swiftly that it was found impossible to overtake them.
In St. Johnsbury, Vermont, The Caledonian informed readers of the Northeast Kingdom: The 6th corps moved toward the railroad Thursday morning, driving the enemy before them, and during the afternoon reported that they were in possession of the road, and arrangements were at once made to destroy it. The next issue of the newspaper reported somewhat unemotionally: The Vermont Troops are very unfortunate. The 4th regiment was nearly all captured [and also] three or four hundred of the 11th. The Rutland Herald of June 29, 1864 under a more dramatic headline reading: VERMONT BRIGADE --- HEAVY LOSSES, reported: Yesterday afternoon the Vermont brigade 6th corps, advanced upon the Weldon Railroad and obtained possession of it with little effort or loss, but were attacked immediately by an overwhelming rebel force, and repulsed before any support could reach them. Their loss was severe. On July 6, Rutland readers were greeted with the headline: DISASTER TO THE VERMONT BRIGADE Reading on, they learned: The total loss to the brigade is now stated to be 508 men. Of the Eleventh regiment, Major Fleming’s battalion is reported nearly all taken prisoner. Major Fleming was with his battalion in support of a skirmish line, holding an advanced position, and the enemy broke through the line, both on his left and right, coming quite into the rear, rendering successful defense or escape impossible. General Robert E. Lee, commanding the Army of Northern Virginia, informed the Confederate Secretary of War: Yesterday the enemy made a demonstration with infantry upon the Weldon railroad, but before he had done much damage was driven back by General Mahone with a portion of his command. About 600 prisoners and 28 commissioned officers were taken, most of whom were captured by Perry’s Florida Brigade… The Adjutant General of Vermont explained that: On the 23d, Capt. Beattie [pronounced “Bee AT Tee”] of the Third Regiment, commanding about 90 picked men as sharpshooters, pushed on to the Weldon Railroad, and a portion of the pioneers of the Brigade went out to the road and commenced its destruction. The Fourth Regiment and Major Fleming’s battalion of the Eleventh Regiment occupied an advanced position as skirmishers. The enemy attacked the party on the railroad and drove them back, pushing around to the left of the advanced line, and at the same time the picket line in front of the Third Division, which held the line next on the right, fell back and the enemy occupied in force the woods upon the right and closing in from both sides upon the rear of the Fourth Regiment and Maj. Fleming’s battalion, leaving them no chance for escape. The men fought desperately to the last, hand to hand, and only surrendered when their ammunition had become exhausted and surrender was necessary. In this minor engagement, the VI Corps lost 578 men. This is relatively insignificant for Civil War battles involving a Corps with 18,000 soldiers. When one considers losses in other battles, particularly those of Grant’s Overland Campaign including The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor, it was not worthy of mention. U. S. Grant reported to Washington the next day that he had “no special change or news to report on yesterday.” The Vermont Brigade sustained 454 casualties of whom 407 were captured. 381 were Vermont enlisted men. Study of what happened to these enlisted men, reveals that 224 died during or as a direct result of their imprisonment—an astounding 59%. “What Really Happened?”
In late June, Grant began an operation to cut the southern railways leading into Petersburg knowing this would force Lee to come out from behind his defenses to defend his supply lines.
The Petersburg and Weldon Railroad brought supplies for Lee’s army from Weldon, North Carolina and the Deep South. Grant’s plan was to move two corps of his army south and west around the right flank of the Army of Northern Virginia defending Petersburg. This movement got underway on June 21 with Winfield Scott Hancock’s II and Major General Horatio G. Wright’s (LC Photo) VI Corps moving south down the Jerusalem Plank Road to the Williams House. The next day these two corps attempted to move west across the Petersburg & Weldon Railroad. The advance was bungled and Confederate General William Mahone struck with his division of the Army of Northern Virginia in a well-time blow attacking between the two Federal corps striking the left flank of the II Corps. The attack rolled-up two Federal brigades and sent the II Corps reeling back to the Jerusalem Plank Road. The Confederates captured 1800 prisoners.
On the morning of Thursday, June 23, the VI Corps again attempted to advances west toward the Weldon Railroad. When less than two miles from the railroad the Corps halted and entrenched with the Vermont Brigade manning the western edge of a great bulge facing the railroad.
Sharpshooters from the Vermont Brigade were sent forward to secure the railroad. With a working party of Brigade Pioneers busy tearing up the rails, Division Commander Brigadier General Frank Wheaton, attempted to provide them with protection from any Confederate interference. Major John A. Pratt was sent out in front to the left. He took with him 230 men from eight companies of his Company A 4th Vermont Infantry. Lieutenant Henry Chase also took 140 men from Walker's Battalion of the 11th Vermont to the picket line in front of the southern end of the Vermont Brigade. Major Charles K. Fleming took his Battalion of the 11th Vermont, numbering 400 men, out in front of the Vermont Brigade.
General Robert E. Lee, upon learning that the Federals were again pushing west to cut the Weldon Railroad, requested his Third Corps commander, Lieutenant General A. P. Hill, place a strong force down the Halifax Road which ran parallel to the railroad and attempt to dislodge the Federal troops that had straddled the railroad at the Globe Tavern. Hill again sent pugnacious “Little Willie” Mahone (Brigadier General William Mahone (LC Photo)) with his division. Mahone remembered taking “about 6,000 muskets.” However, he might have started from Petersburg with 4,000 “present for duty” and he was able to fielded fewer. He reported 500 men in his Florida Brigade but we know that of 200 Floridians who began the 3 mile march from Petersburg in 100 degree heat only 150 arrived to engage the Vermonters. Facing these Confederates were 2,660 officers and men of the Vermont Brigade plus some help from non-Vermonters to the left and right and the arrival late in the afternoon of Wheaton’s Brigade. Out in front of the Vermont Brigade main line were about 1000 Vermonters in isolate and scattered positions. What happen next was disastrous for these exposed Vermonters.
The Confederates swept in and over several hours during the late afternoon gobbled up the forward Vermonters of the 4th Regiment and Fleming’s battalion of the 11th Vermont. The 3rd Georgia Regiment chased the Vermonters off the railroad and then Mahone arrayed his division in line of battle along the railroad facing east. Methodically, he had his Georgians push the Vermonters of Fleming’s Battalion back to an entrenched position in the woods and pin them there. He then sent his Mississippi Brigade around the north flank of these Vermonters while he took the rest of his division south attempting to get around the Federal's left flank. His Virginians struck the 4th Vermont picket line splitting the regiment in half and fanned out in its rear near Dr. Gurley's house. Captain William C. Tracy assembled the left wing of the 4th Vermont and rallied his men for a brief stand. He soon fell dead, shot through the neck, and after several more men had been shot down, the rest surrendered to the surrounding Confederates. Major Pratt and the right wing of the regiment fled north to join Major Fleming’s battalion at his breastwork in the woods. The Florida Brigade advanced north and met the Mississippi Brigade moving south behind Fleming’s breastwork. Escape was impossible and at dusk when their ammunition ran out, Majors Pratt and Fleming surrendered their commands totaling 344 officers and enlisted men.
L. A. Grant, who commanded the Vermont Brigade, reported in his after action report that “All that subsequently transpired is not fully known, but enough is known to satisfy me that our men fought to the last, and surrendered only when their ammunition was nearly exhausted and surrender became necessary.” Mahone's “little affair” is a classic example of a double envelopment by the Confederates---smaller but modeled after Hannibal’s defeat of the Roman legions at Cannae in 216 BC. George G. Benedict, who wrote the two volume work Vermont in the Civil War in 1886, described this battle at the Weldon Railroad as an “incredible blunder.” He pointed out that the engagement seemed “without object or gain to anybody but the enemy.” Captain Walker explained that "the performances hereabouts yesterday were very bungling." The commander of the 11th Vermont, Major George Chamberlin, placed the blame for what had occurred on the corps commander, Major General Horatio Wright, for not providing proper supports.
Lt. Lyman Williams of the 6th Vermont placed the blame lower down the chain of command with the field officers, particularly the Division Field Officer of the Day, Lt. Col. Samuel Pingree(VHS Photo). Williams wrote home to Vermont:
Day before yesterday the 4th & 11th Regts lost a good number of Prisoners as they were on the scurmish [sic] line and the enemy turned their flank and got into their rear and gobbled them up through the carelessness of some of the officers in Command. The enlisted men in the Vermont Brigade agreed. Peter M. Abbott of the 3rd Vermont explained to his parents: "It was a shame full thing to put men out as they were and not give them any support. There was sum misunderstanding somewhere or else the officers were drunk [sic]." Romaine J. Eggleston of the 5th Vermont stated the obvious: "It was a miserable blunder by somebody." Colonel Theodore S. Lyman, on Meade's staff, blamed "everyone high and low." Captain Edward B. Parker wrote home: "Our capture was one of the most shameful captures that ever happened. There was no one in command of us that knew or cared anything about us. Major Fleming did not come out of his hole. He did not know anything about what was going on out on the line..." Captain James E. Eldredge agreed with Parker concluding: "It is evident that there was some very bad management on that day. There can be no excuse for the Field Officer of the Day." And, he added that Major Charles K. Fleming "was too cowardly to even get up to the front line of breastworks." The survivors in Fleming's Battalion also angrily blamed Fleming. Benedict concluded that the disaster was not the fault of "any Vermonter." He blamed the acting Division Commander, Brigadier General Frank Wheaton, saying: "It is safe to say that if General Getty had been in command of his division this melancholy affair would not have happened." As in most battles, this engagement was decided by competent tactical execution on one side and incompetent management on the other. Although the Vermont troops fought with courage, two of their key officers--- Major Charles K. Fleming (VHS Photo) who commanded at the breastwork and Lt. Col. Samuel Pingree (Vermonter Magazine Photo) who was the Division Field Officer of the Day (and later Governor of Vermont) behaved inexplicably with incompetence or cowardice or both. General Lewis A. Grant performed well but the Division Commander, Frank Wheaton, and VI Corps Commander Horatio Wright, performed badly. The huge 18,000-man VI Corps hunkered down behind their field works and allowed Mahone’s much smaller force to advance at will and gobbled-up the exposed Vermonters. In all, 407 Vermonters were captured in this battle. By Civil War standards this is not a large number. The II Corps lost 1800 prisoners the day before. A greater number of Vermonters were taken when Stonewall Jackson captured Harper’s Ferry in 1862. When Colonel Dixon Stansbury Miles surrendered the garrison at Harpers Ferry, 12,500 Federals were captured including all of the 9th Vermont Regiment----747 officers and men. However, in this shameful and humiliating affair, the 9th Regiment sustained no casualties, and all were promptly paroled. Although their subsequent ordeal during parole at Camp Douglas in Chicago was bitter, the regiment was exchanged and went on to redeem its honor. At the Weldon Railroad this did not occur. Following the mismanagement that resulted in their capture, only months of misery, disease and death followed. 59% (224 of the 381 enlisted men) died during or as a direct result of their capture. George Benedict eloquently said: Of the men thus captured, over one half died within six month after their capture, a few in Confederate hospitals, but most of them in the prison pens of Andersonville and Columbia, S.C. Most of these Vermonters were strong and vigorous men when taken that day, who thus died by a lingering death in the hands of the enemy. A number who lived to be exchanged, came home mere wrecks of men and died soon after, and it is probably no exaggeration to say that 70 per cent of the men captured died in prison or from the results of their captivity. The prisoners were marched to Petersburg and sent to Libby Prison in Richmond. The enlisted men were loaded into cattle cars and shipped to the Confederate Military Prison at Andersonville, Georgia.
The horror of Andersonville—the indescribable suffering and grim mortality within the prison pen—does not require retelling and is suggested in the photographs taken by a Confederate photographer in August 1864.
Suffice to say, Andersonville, to quote Carl Sandburg, to the North meant “horror beyond words”. To be sent to Andersonville in the summer of 1864 was the worst danger a Vermont soldier could face in the Civil War. It was more hazardous than being sent to the disease ridden lower Mississippi Valley. Of 30,000 Federal POW’s who died in Confederate hands, 13,000 are buried in the Andersonville Cemetery. They died of malnutrition, scurvy, dysentery and neglect. The immediate cause of death at Andersonville appears to have been a massive and lethal epidemic of hookworm. [See section "Why Did the Vermonters Die at Andersonville?" and David F. Cross, "What Killed the Yankees at Andersonville?" North & South Magazine, vol. 6, no. 6 (Sept.), 2003, pages 26-32.]
Burial of Leandrew B. Farnham. William Marvel has identified this photograph as showing the burial of Leandrew Farnham of Company A 11th Vermont Infantry. It was the last in a series of photographs taken at Andersonville on August 16, 1864 by Macon photographer Andrew Jackson Riddle. The burial detail is shown placing Leandrew in the mass grave that was to receive 137 bodies on this day. His grave is now identified as Grave #5851 in the National Cemetery at Andersonville. Leandrew's younger brother, Lorenzo who died on August 20, lies in Grave #6264. The Farnham brothers were captured at the Weldon Railroad on June 23, 1864. (NA Photo) When Sherman advanced on Atlanta in the autumn of 1864, the prisoners at Andersonville were transferred elsewhere in the Confederacy--to Millen, Florence, Charleston, Salisbury where they continued to die. The Vermonters who suffered and died in these Confederate prisons, like all of the Federal POWs, were offered release if they would join the Confederate army. Sergeant John J. Faller of the 7th Pennsylvania Reserves reported that while at Andersonville: The rebels tried hard to get our men to take the oath of the Southern Confederacy and join their army. They would come in and offer all kinds of inducements…We would get good clothes and plenty to eat…That 35,000 men suffered all the horrors of a living death and that more than 14,000 died from exposure and starvation, rather than betray their country, establishes the fact that there is no spot on the earth where greater heroism and loyalty was displayed than in this horrid prison. These men—exposed to the rays of a southern sun by day; to rain and storm by night; suffering thirst and gnawing hunger; consumed by lice and fleas and mosquitoes and maggots; suffering from scurvy until the teeth dropped from the gums; enduring all the pain and misery that could be inflicted on them; dying at the rate of more than a hundred a day---remained faithful to their flag, although food and clothing and life were offered to them to betray their country. Only three (possibly 4) enlisted men from the Vermont Brigade captured at the Weldon Railroad deserted to the enemy while POW’s. 378 remained loyal to their flag and endured months of unspeakable misery with half dying. George Benedict portrays the stand of the Vermont Brigade in the battle of The Wilderness as the “finest moment” for Vermont troops in the Civil War. “Nowhere,” maintains Benedict, “was the valor of Vermont troops more manifest” than at the junction of the Brock and Orange Plank Roads where “a thousand Vermonters fell in an afternoon.” Howard Coffin theorizes concerning what was the “defining event” for Vermont during the War. In addition to The Wilderness, he offers Third Winchester, Cedar Creek, and the third day at Gettysburg. A case can be made for the disastrous affair at the Weldon Railroad being this “defining moment.” Perhaps, “nowhere was the valor of Vermont troops more manifest” than in the prison pens of Andersonville, Millen and Florence. These POW’s showed their valor not just for minutes during battle but endured endless months of misery and death.
Grave #3382 in the cemetery at Andersonville. It belongs to Private Andrew St. John of Rutland, Vermont. He was the first of 112 Vermonters captured on June 23, 1864 to die at Andersonville whose graves can be identified in the cemetery. He died of dysentery on July 16, 1864. When one considers what happened to the Vermonters captured at the Weldon Railroad, one is reminded of the sad fate of the 7,000 Athenian prisoners captured at Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War in 414 BC who were sent to labor and die in the quarries of Ortygia. Thucydides relates in his history of the Peloponnesian War: “And whatsoever misery is probably that men in such a place may suffer, they suffered…Few of many returned home.” This is certainly true of the Vermonters captured at the Weldon Railroad who "showed godlike valor, but died the death of men." ::Read more narrative accounts::
Please contact David F. Cross, MD, with questions or input at davidcross@weldonrailroad.com | |||
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It was the beginning of the 4th year of the Civil War. Militarily the conflict had gone well in the West with the capture of New Orleans in 1862 and Vicksburg in 1863. But where it counted, in the Eastern theater of operations, Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia had achieved a bloody stalemate. The hero of Vicksburg, Lieutenant General U. S. Grant, had been give the job of commander-in-chief all Federal armies and brought east to deal with Lee. In May of 1864 Grant marched the Army of the Potomac across the Rapadan River and began his Overland Campaign to crush the Army of Northern Virginia. He moved to threaten Richmond and after a series of particularly bloody battles and almost continuous fighting, he crossed the James River on June 12. After failing to take Petersburg in this surprise move, Grant initiated an investment of Petersburg. The Army of Northern Virginia, although not what it once had been, and backed-up behind Petersburg's defenses, still remained a potent and deadly opponent.
©2006 David F. Cross
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