Virginia, Dinwiddie County,

October 27, 1864

By Garrett C. Peck

By late October the Confederate line at Petersburg was thinning. It extended far beyond the city’s defenses, curving to the southwest to Hatcher’s Run to protect the vital South Side Railroad and the Boydton Plank Road. The plank road was CS General Robert E. Lee’s link to the Weldon Railroad and Wilmington, the Confederacy’s last major port.

US Major General George Gordon Meade, the commander of the Army of the Potomac, won US Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant’s approval for a major turning movement to cut those roads. Union forces had just won a major victory at Cedar Creek, and the presidential election was less than two weeks away. The Federals needed another victory before winter halted all offensive operations.

Meade assembled a strike force of 42,823 men from three infantry corps and the cavalry. US Major General Winfield Scott Hancock’s II Corps was to cross Hatcher’s Run, then swing up the White Oak Road, on to the Boydton Plank Road, and then proceed cross-country to sever the railroad. Success hinged upon US Major General Gouverneur K. Warren’s V and US Major General Ambrose E. Burnside’s IX Corps’ punching through the enemy’s weak line along the run. If they failed, the II Corps would be isolated. The Army of the James was to undertake a simultaneous demonstration against Richmond to prevent the transfer of reinforcements.

Union forces began moving into position at 3:00 a.m. on October 27 in a drizzle that increased to rain. Muddy roads and Confederate skirmishers slowed the advance to a crawl, and many units got lost in the dense woods. Six hours later, when the IX Corps found the strongly manned Confederate lines, they had lost the element of surprise. They dug in without a fight. The V Corps also ground to a halt north of Armstrong Mill after discovering formidable Confederate earthworks. These lines were held by 15,386 veteran troops of CS Lieutenant General Ambrose Powell Hill’s Third Corps.

Meanwhile two divisions of the II Corps crossed the swollen Hatcher’s Run, with US Brigadier General David M. Gregg’s 4,921-man cavalry division protecting the Federal left flank. Brushing aside skirmishers, Hancock headed west up Dabney Mill Road toward Burgess’s Mill. This movement threatened to cut off CS Major General Wade Hampton’s two cavalry divisions (4,938 men), which patrolled the area south of the stream. After he held up Gregg’s cavalry along Gravelly Run, Hampton retreated northward to block the White Oak Road.

The II Corps crossed the Boydton Plank Road where US Brigadier General Gershom Mott’s force confronted Hampton’s cavalry corps. Hill reacted quickly to the Union threat, but became ill and turned over the command of his corps to CS Major General Henry Heth. Soon Heth’s and CS Major General William Mahone’s Divisions occupied the north bank of Hatcher’s Run. Hancock planned to push Heth aside and continue up the Boydton Plank Road, but at 1:00 p.m. General Meade ordered him to halt. Hancock’s advance would further isolate the II Corps, and the South Side Railroad was still six miles away. Meade ordered US General Crawford’s V Corps division to connect with Hancock’s right, but that unit floundered in the thick woods. Grant made a personal reconnaissance of Heth’s line and came under heavy small-arms fire at the bridge near Burgess’s Mill. After escaping unharmed, he concluded that the enemy was too strong and called off the offensive.

The II Corps was left trapped in a pocket along the Boydton Plank Road without any support. Heth and Hampton planned to destroy it with an attack that would have been a humiliating repeat of Hancock’s defeat in the battle of Reams Station. They ordered the cavalry to hold Gregg in place from the west and the southwest while the infantry swept around the Federals’ right, seized the Dabney Mill Road, and cut their line of retreat. At 4:30 p.m. Mahone attacked across Hatcher’s Run, shattered one Union brigade, overran two guns, and reached the Dabney Mill Road. Although they were hemmed in on three sides, the II Corps did not panic and offered fierce resistance. Hancock quickly grasped his opportunity. Mahone had advanced unsupported, and his flanks were unprotected. Hancock ordered one division to attack the enemy right, while another brigade and part of Gregg’s cavalry hit Mahone from the front and left. This counterattack threatened the Confederates with encirclement, but they fought their way back across Hatcher’s Run with heavy losses.

After routing Mahone, the Federal cavalry galloped off to oppose Hampton’s attack. The Confederate cavalry pressed forward as planned but gained no ground. Two of Hampton’s sons were wounded that day, one mortally. Gregg’s cavalry prevented Federal disaster by protecting the II Corps’s left flank from being overwhelmed.

Grant left to Hancock the decision of whether to remain in position or to retire. Hancock had won a tactical victory against an enemy equal in numbers and who threatened him with disaster; a section of the strategic Boydton Plank Road was in his hands; and he had restored his corps’s reputation. However, the II Corps was isolated behind enemy lines, the men were short of ammunition, and the V Corps had not made contact. When Hancock ordered his men to dig earthworks, one asked, “General, which way will you have them face?”

Hancock decided to withdraw that night toward Dabney’s Mill and to the army’s original lines. He pulled out in a pouring rain, leaving wounded men and equipment on the field. Both sides settled in for a cold winter in the squalid trenches around Petersburg. The following week the election gave Abraham Lincoln a mandate to conclude the war. Then it was just a matter of time.

Estimated Casualties: 1,758 US, about 1,300 CS