Hess Earl J. Field Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War: The Eastern Campaigns, 1861-1864
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298 From Bristoe Station to the Fall of Plymouth
murder if it was not supported by Warren, Meade canceled his movement
just before it was due to start at 9:00 a.m.
∞∂
Meade could not come up with an alternative plan. There appeared to be
no opportunity to outflank Lee’s position, and it was obvious a frontal as-
sault was impossible. For two days, November 30 and December 1, the two
armies stared at each other at close range without moving. ‘‘Our men remain
night & day behind the breastworks,’’ reported commissary officer Benjamin
Wesley Justice of the 47th North Carolina. ‘‘At night one fourth of the entire
army remains awake all night, one fourth relieving another fourth at the end
of a given period, each fourth taking its turn during the night. Directions for
cool, deliberate fighting in case of a night assault by the enemy, are issued to
the troops just before night.’’ The temperature dropped, causing much dis-
comfort for the men on both sides of Mine Run.
∞∑
On the evening of December 1, Meade finally decided to give up the
campaign and slip away. His army quietly retired under cover of darkness to
the north side of the Rapidan and went into winter quarters. Lee, however,
had grown restless. He was determined to attack even if the Federals were
not, so he planned to advance two divisions of Hill’s corps against Meade’s
left wing early on the morning of December 2. They found the Yankees gone
but mounted no pursuit. Many Rebels were disappointed. ‘‘We all agreed
that we would have carried their line, for they had scarcely any works, and
our artillery would have very much commanded theirs.’’ Later that day, word
reached the Army of Northern Virginia about Bragg’s defeat at Missionary
Ridge, outside Chattanooga, on November 25. That important gate city to
the Deep South was securely in Federal hands. The victory at Chattanooga
would later propel its architect, Ulysses S. Grant, into command of all Union
armies and lead him to direct operations against Lee. Meade would no lon-
ger have to face the South’s best general alone.
∞∏
The Mine Run campaign resulted in about 800 Confederate casualties and
double that number of Federal losses. It was the culmination of the fall
efforts in Virginia that have been sadly overlooked by contemporaries and
historians alike because they resulted in no major battle. The campaigns
demonstrated how much the eastern armies embraced the construction of
field fortifications. The line at Mine Run was the strongest fieldwork built to
date by the Army of Northern Virginia. The only fieldwork constructed by the
Army of the Potomac that matched it in strength and detail was Hooker’s
fortified bridgehead at Chancellorsville. The works at Mine Run foreshad-
owed what was to come in the next phase of the eastern war, beginning at
Spotsylvania and extending to the end of the Petersburg campaign.
∞π
From Bristoe Station to the Fall of Plymouth 299
Francis Walker, who served on Warren’s staff at Second Corps headquar-
ters, marveled at the Rebel works along Mine Run, calling the line ‘‘by far the
most striking instance which had, down to that time, been given of the
capability of this species of defence.’’ Walker noted surprise at finding Lee so
heavily entrenched, for it did not fit his previous habit. In the early part of the
war, ‘‘stone walls or rail fences were considered good enough for anybody.’’
Now the mood of commanders and men had changed. Walker correctly
pointed out that in the campaigns of 1864, ‘‘it was to become almost impos-
sible to get a fair fight anywhere in open ground.’’
∞∫
Mine Run also demonstrated a unique phenomenon of the war, what
might be called trench gridlock. Lee’s fortified line was so strong it deterred a
Union attack, and the Federals could find no way to sidestep it. There are few
better examples of how a strongly fortified position can alter a campaign and
decide its result. The fortification itself became the key to the tactical and
strategic result of Meade’s offensive; it was so good that the would-be at-
tacker was left with no alternative but to withdraw. In a sense this was not
what a fortified line was supposed to do. The ideal was to strengthen a
position enough so that the defender could punish the attacker as much as
possible while holding it. If the work was so daunting that it deterred an
attack, then nothing beyond checkmating the opponent could be accom-
plished. Lee’s men hoped Meade would attack, and they were very dis-
appointed that he did not try. Instead the troops were treated to two days of
facing the enemy at close range without fighting.
∞Ω
The armies remained in their winter camps except for a brief Union at-
tempt to threaten the fortified crossings of the Rapidan in February. Meade
was then on sick leave in Philadelphia, and Sedgwick was temporarily com-
manding the Army of the Potomac. Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler came up
with a plan and coaxed General in Chief Henry W. Halleck into pressuring
Sedgwick to cooperate. Butler heard that Lee had dispatched 8,000 men to
help in an attempt to recapture New Bern that winter. If Sedgwick threat-
ened Lee’s army along the Rapidan, enough Confederate troops might be
drawn from Richmond to enable Butler to enter the city and free Union
prisoners of war. Sedgwick thought the plan unworkable, but Halleck forced
him to go along with it.
While two cavalry divisions demonstrated on the flanks, the First and
Second Corps marched to Raccoon Ford and Morton’s Ford, well to the east
of Mine Run. Sedgwick only wanted them to make noise on the north bank
of the river for two days, but Brig. Gen. John C. Caldwell, temporarily com-
manding the corps while Warren recuperated from illness, ignored those
300 From Bristoe Station to the Fall of Plymouth
instructions and sent a sizable force across the river to seize the Confederate
works on the south side on February 6. Three hundred men from Brig. Gen.
Joshua T. Owen’s brigade easily captured the ford itself, but they were then
confronted by a fortified line, with artillery, ranged along a ridgetop about a
mile from the crossing. Owen took the rest of his brigade across, and then
the other two brigades of Brig. Gen. Alexander Hays’s division also crossed.
These men were held in readiness, but Hays realized the Rebel position was
too strong to risk an attack.
When Warren arrived to reassume command of his corps, he wanted to
withdraw Hays’s division. It would be too risky to do it in daylight, as the Reb-
els were gathering more men and artillery on the ridge and could command
the crossing with their guns. Ewell had reached the scene as well, and he
ordered an attack at 5:00 p.m. It was poorly pressed, and Owen was able to
stop it with spirited skirmishing on the Union right, where Ewell had hoped
to cut through and capture the ford before Hays could retreat. Warren rushed
another division across to reinforce Hays, but the Confederates skirmished
until 10:00 p.m. Then Warren successfully withdrew his two divisions.
The affair at Morton’s Ford demonstrated the value of planting fortifica-
tions at the fords that peppered the line of the Rapidan River, but it failed to
help Butler’s strike at Richmond. His column made it from Yorktown as far as
the crossing of the Chickahominy River, where the Rebels put up enough of a
stand to compel the Union commander to retreat. Sedgwick lost 260 men at
Morton’s Ford, compared with only 50 Confederate casualties.
≤≠
Mine Run and Morton’s Ford were followed by a winter of recuperation as
Grant took command and prepared for the coordinated offensives of 1864.
The line of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad would no longer be the axis
of advance, but Grant instructed Meade to erect defenses at all bridges
between Bull Run and Rappahannock Station. It was important to supply the
garrisons occupying that region of Virginia. The U.S. Engineer Battalion did
most of the work. Lt. Andrew Jackson Crossley supervised the construction
of two stockades at Bristoe Station to protect the bridge over Broad Run, one
on each side of the track, that were 80 by 25 feet in dimension. He dug a
trench 3 feet deep and put 13-foot-long logs upright in it. Two sides of the
logs were hewn beforehand to form a tight union, and loopholes for muskets
were cut in every third log. The works protected the garrisons from guerrillas
or cavalry and covered the bridge to prevent its burning. Other defenses
were made at Catlett’s Station and Kettle Run by April 28. The regular engi-
neers then finished a stockade started at Rappahannock Station by the 50th
New York Engineers just before Grant launched his campaign against Lee.
≤∞
From Bristoe Station to the Fall of Plymouth 301
New Bern
Butler’s intelligence that Lee had sent 8,000 men to North Carolina was
exaggerated, for only Hoke’s Tar Heel brigade, the 43rd North Carolina, and
the 21st Georgia were sent to the region. Rebel forces were on the move in
North Carolina in another effort to recapture towns occupied by the Yankees
for the past two years. As in 1863, an ancillary purpose was to gather as much
food from the Carolina coastal plain as possible.
≤≤
Lee had suggested operations against New Bern as early as January 2,
based on a report that the Federal garrison could be easily surprised. He had
wanted Hoke to command the attempt; but President Jefferson Davis pre-
ferred someone of higher rank, so Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett was chosen.
Pickett would have 13,000 men, supported by fourteen Navy cutters under
Commander John Taylor Wood on the Neuse River. He started from Kinston
on January 30 in three columns. Brig. Gen. Seth M. Barton, with three
brigades and twelve guns, was to cross the Trent River and advance to Brice’s
Creek. He was then to force a passage, capture any Federal forts along the
south side of the Trent and along the west side of the Neuse, and enter New
Bern across the railroad bridge. Col. James Dearing led a second column
consisting of three regiments and three guns against Fort Anderson, on the
north side of the Neuse. This was the same work that Pettigrew had failed to
take nearly a year before. Pickett and Hoke led the remaining men against
New Bern by advancing north of the Trent River. They planned to cross
Batchelder’s Creek and enter town from the west.
This was a complicated movement of widely separated columns, all of
which were to strike the Federals on February 1. Wood’s naval contingent
was also to attack and capture Union gunboats on the Neuse that day. Lee
had high hopes for the expedition. He urged Pickett to follow up the capture
of New Bern with further strikes at Plymouth and Washington. In addition to
capturing supplies and prisoners, the campaign would ‘‘also have the hap-
piest effect in North Carolina and inspire the people,’’ he wrote.
≤≥
The Yankees, not as complacent as Lee was led to believe, had strength-
ened the defenses of New Bern since Maj. Gen. John J. Peck took command
of the city in August 1863. Peck, who had been responsible for the fortifica-
tions at Suffolk, believed the Trent River was the weak point of the defenses,
as it divided them into two sectors and made it difficult to shift troops from
one side to the other. The navy, however, did not want to send gunboats up
the narrow stream to help. Despite Butler’s reluctance to authorize new
works, Peck built extensively along the more exposed parts of his defense
perimeter.
≤∂
302 From Bristoe Station to the Fall of Plymouth
Pickett thus found a stronger target than he was led to expect. Most of
Peck’s new fortifications appeared along Barton’s line of advance. Although
he had been told that there would be no earthworks in the way, Barton
encountered several citizens who reported just the opposite. He reconnoi-
tered and saw the works for himself, describing them as ‘‘of the most formi-
dable character.’’ There was a line of works on the east bank of Brice’s Creek,
and the timber had been cut down on the west bank to create a clear field of
fire. The Federals had also erected a blockhouse on the east side, a redoubt
with ten guns where the creek entered the Trent River, and a battery for eight
guns only 300 yards east of the confluence. A mile away, a large redoubt was
built near the railroad bridge. Barton also heard of other works north of the
Trent River. He decided to await instructions from Pickett, who ordered him
to give up the attempt and move to the north side of the river. It would take
several days for Barton to complete the redisposition of his command.
≤∑
Pickett’s column fared little better. The Union earthworks at Batchelder’s
Creek were lightly held, but the bridge was dismantled. Hoke crossed some
men on an improvised log bridge and drove the Yankees back while the
wagon bridge was repaired. Then Hoke pushed on to within a mile of New
Bern. Pickett halted to listen for the sound of Barton’s advance south of the
Trent River, for the western defenses of New Bern were far too strong to
assault unaided. But Pickett never heard a sound from Barton, only the
discouraging message that he was faced with equally strong defenses at
Brice’s Creek. Dearing also reported that Fort Anderson was too strongly
held to risk an attack. There was little else to do but call off the operation, so
Pickett fell back on February 3. He had taken twenty-two prisoners on the
expedition and impulsively decided to hang them because they had deserted
from Confederate units. This would brand Pickett as a war criminal after the
conflict and force him to flee the country temporarily to avoid arrest and
prosecution.
≤∏
Pickett had had no better luck with New Bern than Daniel Harvey Hill had
in March 1863. All sectors of the town’s perimeter were thoroughly covered
with fieldworks that probably could have withstood any assault directed
against them.
Plymouth
Other towns were not so well prepared as New Bern, however, and the
Confederates wasted no time in attempting to take them. Pickett returned
to Virginia immediately after the failure of his New Bern expedition and
was succeeded by Hoke. The North Carolinian planned a strike against Ply-
mouth, a small town on the south bank of the Roanoke River. Fort Branch,
From Bristoe Station to the Fall of Plymouth 303
about forty-five miles upriver at Rainbow Banks, was still held by the Confed-
erates. The sleepy little town had not been as thoroughly fortified as New
Bern, and the garrison was less vigilant. Hoke still had a sizable force, includ-
ing his own Tar Heel brigade now led by Col. John T. Mercer, Col. William R.
Terry’s Virginia brigade, Brig. Gen. Matthew W. Ransom’s North Carolina
brigade, and Col. James Dearing’s cavalry regiment.
≤π
Brig. Gen. Henry W. Wessells had commanded the garrison of Plymouth
since the spring of 1863. He had 3,000 men, but the defenses were flawed.
Fort Gray was detached two miles upstream from town to defend against an
approach by Confederate gunboats. Fort Wessells, also known as the 85th
New York Redoubt, was placed half a mile southwest of town and one mile
southeast of Fort Gray. It was detached well forward of the main line of
defense and mounted a 32-pounder and a 6-pounder. Fort Wessells also had
a ditch, drawbridge, abatis, and forty-two infantrymen from the 85th New
York. Twenty-three men of the 2nd Massachusetts Heavy Artillery worked
the guns. Fort Williams lay at the center of the defense line, due south of
Plymouth, and the right wing was defended by a continuous line of infantry
trench from Fort Williams to the river upstream from town. Battery Worth
anchored the right flank with a 200-pounder Parrott on the riverbank. The
eastern side of town was loosely covered by Fort Comfort and Conaby Re-
doubt, detached works on either side of Columbia Road. The swampy bot-
tomland of Conaby Creek was believed to be a sufficient obstruction to the
approach of a Confederate force from the east.
≤∫
Hoke came within range of Union guns on April 17 and began to dig
artillery emplacements that night. The next day he opened a bombardment
of Fort Wessells while Terry haltingly approached Fort Gray. Ransom’s bri-
gade advanced east of Fort Williams, reaching within 800 yards of the work,
and Mercer attacked Fort Wessells after nightfall. The Rebels began to enter
the abatis but fell back when the Federals used 6-pounder shells ‘‘with spe-
cial ignition fuses’’ as hand grenades. The Tar Heels suffered heavy losses,
and Mercer was mortally wounded. After the repulse, Hoke intensified his
artillery fire on Fort Wessells and punished the garrison severely. Rebel
gunners obtained a crossfire on the work from positions as close as 100
yards, according to Yankee Lt. Lucien A. Butts. At this close range, even field
artillery could break down a parapet. Shells gouged out chunks of sandy soil,
and the sandbags ‘‘were broken and thrown off the parapet, so as to destroy
the loop-holes’’ used by sharpshooters. Fort Wessells also was accidentally
hit by Union naval gunfire. The garrison surrendered at 11:00 p.m.
≤Ω
That night, as Fort Wessells was reduced, the CSS Albemarle descended
the Roanoke. One of the best ironclad vessels the Confederacy produced, it
304 From Bristoe Station to the Fall of Plymouth
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Union Defenses of Plymouth, N.C., April 1864 (based on wartime map by Solon E. Allis,
27th Massachusetts, published in Ballard, ‘‘Good Time to Pray,’’ 20)
broke through a line of obstructions three miles upstream from town at 2:30
a.m. and easily passed Fort Gray. The Albemarle then steamed to Plymouth,
rammed and sank the USS Southfield, and chased away the USS Miami, both
wooden gunboats. By dawn of April 19, the Rebel ironclad controlled the
riverfront at Plymouth. Its crew prepared to support Hoke’s renewed efforts
on land with naval gunfire.
≥≠
Plymouth might have fallen even without the success of the Albemarle,
but the fire support of the ironclad proved decisive for the rest of the opera-
tion. The Federals now felt vulnerable, and they began to build bombproofs
and traverses along the interior of their defense line. There was simply not
enough time, however, to do this adequately. As a result, the interior of the
whole line was exposed to a devastating artillery fire.
≥∞
Hoke shifted the focus of his operations to the Union left, now that the
Albemarle had chased the Federal gunboats from that area. Ransom’s bri-
gade crossed Conaby Creek on a pontoon bridge during the night of April 19.
From Bristoe Station to the Fall of Plymouth 305
It was a ‘‘narrow but deep stream’’ and utterly impractical as an obstruction
to an advancing enemy unless there were earthworks and a defending infan-
try force nearby.
Ransom attacked on the morning of April 20, firing a signal rocket to let
Hoke know he was on the move. Fort Comfort was pounded by the guns of
the Albemarle and then taken by the 35th North Carolina, but the garrison of
Fort Conaby put up stiffer resistance. The 8th North Carolina, loaned to
Ransom from Clingman’s brigade, got into the ditch, where it was pelted
with hand grenades. The Federals also fired through the loopholes cut into
the palisades at the rear of the work. Surrounding the fort, the Tar Heels
managed to fire back when the loopholes were empty, and they broke down
the gate in the palisades, forcing the garrison to surrender.
≥≤
As Ransom’s brigade shattered the left wing of Wessells’s line, the rest of
Hoke’s command concentrated on the right wing. Battery Worth on the far
right fell, and the Rebels concentrated their artillery fire on Fort Williams in
the center of the line. Wessells was inside the fort and witnessed the tremen-
dous pounding. ‘‘The breast-height was struck by solid shot on every side,’’
he reported; ‘‘fragments of shells sought almost every interior angle of the
work, the whole extent of the parapet was swept by musketry, and men were
killed and wounded even on the banquette slope.’’ Wessells surrendered Fort
Williams at 10:00 a.m.
≥≥
Fighting continued to the right of the fort because Col. Enrico Fardella,
who commanded this section of the works, had not received orders to give
up. His men were isolated and hemmed in between the line and a hastily
built parapet several yards to the rear, thrown up to defend against the shells
of the Albemarle. Fardella’s men were hit from all sides. Ransom’s Tar Heels
had by now entered Plymouth and were using houses at the edge of town,
only 100 feet from the imperfect parados, as sharpshooter posts. Naval shells
pounded the parapets of both lines. The feisty Fardella held a council of war
in which he proposed an attack to break through, but his subordinates had
no stomach for such a desperate endeavor. When Hoke sent in a request for
surrender at 2:00 p.m., Fardella agreed. The surrender of Fort Gray soon
followed, and Plymouth was completely in Rebel hands.
≥∂
The Federals lost 2,834 men in this fiasco, while Hoke’s losses were esti-
mated to be as high as 1,800. In his report to Peck, filed four months later,
Wessells claimed that the losses due to enemy fire were not so heavy because
he sheltered his men in bombproofs hastily constructed along the line. But
Peck, the master earthwork builder of Suffolk fame, was not fooled. He
bemoaned the loss of Plymouth and blamed it on faulty engineering. The fire
306 From Bristoe Station to the Fall of Plymouth
delivered by the Albemarle was the key to Confederate victory, he thought,
for it took the entire Union position in reverse. ‘‘Had all the works been
inclosed, the results would have been very different,’’ he informed Butler.
≥∑
Ulysses S. Grant was uncertain that these towns in eastern North Carolina
needed to be garrisoned at all. When he received news of Hoke’s attack on
Plymouth, he urged it to be held ‘‘at all hazards, unless it is of no importance
to hold.’’ He thought it useful to detain Confederate strength in North Caro-
lina but was certain Lee would recall Hoke as soon as the spring campaign
started. The more he thought of it, the more Grant believed it best to give up
smaller towns like Washington as ‘‘unnecessary to us,’’ and he advised against
any attempt to retake Plymouth. New Bern, however, obviously needed to be
retained, as it could serve as a blockade-running port if it were once again in
Southern hands.
≥∏
Hoke did not rest on his laurels after the fall of Plymouth. He besieged
Washington on April 27 but hesitated to order an attack because of rumors
that the Federals were preparing to evacuate the town. Brig. Gen. Edward
Harland had indeed received orders to give up Washington the day before,
but it was April 30 before he finally loaded his small garrison onto boats. Half
the town was torched by the Federals as they left.
New Bern was Hoke’s next target. He moved along the south side of the
Trent River to a point due south of town, where he exchanged artillery
fire with the Yankees on May 5. Hoke planned to attack the next day, but
orders arrived from Beauregard, newly appointed commander of the Depart-
ment of North Carolina and the Cape Fear, to return his units to Virginia.
The order was prompted by Federal moves against Richmond: Benjamin
Butler’s Army of the James was landing at Bermuda Hundred, where it could
threaten either the capital or Petersburg. Yet Beauregard had believed all
along that minor operations against the Carolina towns were a waste of
effort. The Federals could not be decisively hurt even if all of the towns were
recaptured.
≥π
It is doubtful that Hoke could have retaken New Bern or any other Federal
post in North Carolina, but before Beauregard’s order arrived, he had had
every intention of trying. Hoke developed plans for an expedition against
Roanoke Island, and J. G. Sills of the 66th North Carolina reported that
much work was expended on revising the defenses of Plymouth. ‘‘Our men
are kept very busy now all the time working on fortifications,’’ he informed
his father. ‘‘I think if the Yankees ever take this place they will lose more men
than Gen. Hoke did.’’ All plans for future success fell apart with the transfer
to Virginia and the demise of the Albemarle. The ironclad was on its way
through Albemarle Sound to assist Hoke’s attack on New Bern when it was
From Bristoe Station to the Fall of Plymouth 307
stopped in a fierce battle with Union gunboats, particularly the USS Sas-
sacus. Then the Albemarle was sunk while docked at Plymouth on the night
of October 27, 1864, by a daring raid conducted by Commander William B.
Cushing. The Confederates evacuated Plymouth, and Federal forces once
again occupied the town on October 30.
≥∫
The period between Gettysburg and the Wilderness saw a great deal of
movement and many small battles in both Virginia and North Carolina but
no major engagement or decisive victory for either side. Yet this transition
period demonstrated the growing reliance on fortifications by both Union
and Confederate commanders. Mine Run was the most salient example of
this development, but it is evident in the backwater of North Carolina, too.
With a lot of time on their hands, occupying Federals lavished work on New
Bern, the citadel of their position on the coastal plain, and the town with-
stood all Confederate attempts at its reduction. Plymouth fell because its
defenses were flawed. A weakening of Federal will prompted the evacuation
of Washington; the defenses of that town were so strong that Hoke probably
could not have broken through. Even Plymouth was given back to the Yan-
kees six months after it was taken. The campaigns in eastern North Carolina
were oriented around fortified posts, and the Federals usually won because
of their engineering efforts.