Fort Harrison, 5th Major Offensive
 by Daniel Moran
 
The object was to capture Richmond, Virginia in late September 1864. After a hard summer of offensive battles along the earthworks at Petersburg, Virginia, most had been quiet towards the latter portion of the month of September. The II Army Corps, of Major General Winfield Hancock had been used by Major General George G. Meade as the Army of the Potomac's mainstay throughout the summer and now was so depleted among the ranks, having taken nearly 27,000 casualties since June, that it had been posted in the immediate vicinity of Petersburg mostly to watch, and tie down any shifting of combat troops either north or south of the James River by General Robert E. Lee.
 
In late September, Major General Benjamin Butler had conceived of an idea that he would place before Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant. An operation that would shift the Army of the James north of the James River and launch an offensive against the Confederate Outer Defenses just outside of Richmond. The Federal Army of the James would attempt to take control of the entire road system southeast of the Confederate Capitol, and finally to capture Richmond, itself.
 
The current active operations before Petersburg were virtually at a stand still as things began to heat up in the Shenandoah Valley. The battle at Fisher's Hill on 22 September had produced many casualties, but none so critical as the son of Brigadier General William Nelson Pendleton, who Lee had sent off to the Valley for the purpose of retrieving the body for burial.
 
After a boat trip up the James River, despite resistance from staff officers of Grant's staff, Benjamin Butler had convinced Grant to use the Army of the James in the primary role of launching an offensive north of the river.
 
The situation north of the James River was simple. The Confederates figured that the Federal Armies couldn't produce enough of an offensive north against Richmond as the Confederates had soldiers there to defend those earthworks. The Confederate manpower north in the outer defenses was seriously lacking and despite Robert E. Lee's attention being called to the foreseeable problem, he assumed if there had ever been a real threat in that sector, he'd be able to shift troops to man the works in time before an offensive could be launched in vigor against it.
 
On the night of 28-29 September 1864, Major General Benjamin Butler had called his principle officers together for a briefing on the objective movements of his army. Present this evening would be: Major General Edward O. C. Ord, commanding the 18th Army Corps, Major General David B. Birney, commanding the 10th Army Corps, and Brigadier General August V. Kautz, commanding the Cavalry Division.
 
The 18th Army Corps, under Ord, was to make a surprise crossing of the James River at Aiken's Landing and move up the Varina Road cut the Confederate bridges at Chaffin's Bluff and then head up the Osbourne Road for Richmond itself. The 10th Corps, under Birney, was to advance from Deep Bottom and carry New Market Heights. Striking northwest, his divisions would march up the New Market Road towards the Confederate Capitol. While these two corps were engaged, Kautz with his cavalry was to gallop down the Darbytown Road for Richmond as well.
 
By 2:00 AM on the morning of September 29th, the pontoon bridge consisting of 67 boats was in place. Fatigue details then spread dirt, hay and perhaps manure across it all to deaden the sound of marching troops across it. The strike force would consist overall of 27,000 men.
 
While the 18th Army Corps began it's movement north across the river, hours went by before the 10th Corps was in position to cross. By a misunderstanding of orders, General Birney did not get his army corps moving to Bermuda Hundred until 2:00 am. Although it was the Army Commander's wish that all combat troops received sufficient rest before the opening of hostilities, the last of David Birney's Corps did not reach the Hundred until 3:30 am. At 4:00 am, Grant's finest hour came and 10th Army Corps was ordered to "Stand to Arms." The entire 10th Army Corps was moving on practically no sleep.
 
Despite the late start, Major General Birney had avowed that his tardiness would not delay the attack, and as a result his troops would march with no sleep and no breakfast.
 
In General Butler's army was the Third Division of the 18th Army Corps, under Brigadier General Charles Paine. This entire division consisted of United States Colored Troops, and unlike most Northern Officers, Benjamin Butler considered them combat troops and not uniformed ditch diggers. Major General David Birney had seen his brother's brigade of USCTs operate quite well in the field only the month before and backed Butler's decision to have the colored troops open the assault here.
 
New Market Heights had twice before resistently defied attacks by two army corps. As the Federal Strike Force moved towards their targets by columns of divisions, a small brigade consisting of only 1,100 troops would assault this position for the third time. These troops consisted of Paine's third brigade under Colonel Samuel Duncan, the 4th and 6th USCTs, along with the 2nd USCTs (dismounted) Cavalry as skirmishers.
 
The ball opened up at 5:00 AM that morning along the Kingsland Road. This would have been about sunrise. The crackling of musketry informed the 4th and 5th Texas as well as the 3rd Arkansas Infantry of the Yankee Advance. At about 5:30 AM, the long blue lines of Colonel Duncan's troops were becoming more and more visible in the morning fog that held low to the ground. The Texans closed up their haversacks, loaded their muskets and took posted along the parapets.
 
The Confederate defenders began to see their picket lines falling back among the defensive positions and moments later their targets began to appeared before them.
 
As the USCTs began to reform coming out of a ravine, the assault began in earnest as blue clad black soldiers charged the abatis. Some awaited the pioneers to come along and make a path for them, while others struggled across the obstacles. It had been the moment the Confederates had been waiting for. The Rebel Infantry and artillery opened up on the black soldiers with telling and deadly effect.
 
This battle tested brigade were truly hard fighters and the only thing intensified their resistance was their hatred for the black soldier. Many of the negros were killed, many tried to surrender, some were taken prisoners, but later killed, by some Confederate reports. The 6th USCTs were terribly cut up.
 
Colonel Draper then threw in the 22nd USCTs followed by Paine's piece meal feeding tactics, the 5th, 36th, and then the 38th USCTs supporting the assault. Finally the committed black troops had battle lines too strong for further Confederate resistance and boys in gray began to fall back to their inner defenses, yielding New Market Heights a tactical accomplishment and a strategic breakthrough to the United States Colored Troops.
 
The taking of New Market Heights was won more by the Confederates falling back and giving the ground up. Brigadier General John Gregg now in command of the Texas Brigade had ordered them to fall back on Chaffin's Farm and give up the heights. The first success of the day was won.
 
The hour was now 6:00 AM and Major General Edward O. C. Ord's columns were striking up the Varina Road towards Battery No. 9, or Fort Harrison. In the lead, where the 118th New York Infantry, and 10th New Hampshire Infantry, along with the First Division's Sharpshooter Battalion.
 
The 10th New Hampshire and 118th New York had been carried with them a weapon that was no match for the Confederate muzzle loaders, Spencer Repeating Rifles. They had first been challenged the 17th by and 23rd Tennessee Infantry, but they were forced to withdraw due to the heavy return fire of these two regiments. Brigadier General Hiram Burnham, a Mainer, and in command of the 2nd Brigade ordered them to pursue at the double quick.
 
Fort Harrison had commanded all the ground northeast to the Exterior Line. It was an open earthwork. The east face built to defend, the west end open to the Chaffin Cornfield. It's Confederate defenders were few, only about four hundred were present at the time Burnham's brigade had struck the fort. It's artillery was a variety of hodge podge calibers and the ammunition present for the guns did not match the bores they were to be loaded into.
 
Major Richard Cornelius Taylor had commanded the infantry within the fort. First ordering his men to spread out using their muskets. As he approached the walls and looked out seeing the Federals mass in both Cox's Woods and Childrey's Field more to the north, he realized his mistake too late. His troops had fanned out to far south. Ord was after the upper part of the camp, where few were to defend. All Taylor had there were Guerrant's thirty five men and all that could be done was to get them to man it's pieces.
 
With the ammunition proving too large in two of his four pieces when fired, the Confederates had dismounted two of their pieces disabling their artillery fire power from the first shot. 
 
Enroute in vicinity of the Fort was Major James Moore's 17th Georgia Battalion. He was on his way to re-enforce New Market Heights, but on their own, they entered Fort Harrison to assist in its defense. Between Fort Harrison and Battery No. 11 to the north, the manpower was equally divided between the two, 800. Fort Harrison had massed before it, 8,000 Federal Troops.
 
In the edge of Cox's woods stood, Major General Edward Ord, Brigadier General George J. Stannard, commanding the First Division, and three of his own brigade commanders. They spent about fifteen minutes reconnoitering. As Ord's right continued up the Varina Road to assault Battery No. 11, he elected to attack Harrison itself. If captured would control the entire outer line of these defensive works.
 
It was Ord's intent to attack with both Stannard's First Division and Charles Heckman's Second Division on the left of Fort Harrison. But Stannard could no longer wait for Heckman's arrival being still down the Varina Road out of striking range.
 
Although Guerrant's first artillery shots flew over the heads of Stannard's men, when the third struck, the laughing from the Yankee's had stopped. Thirteen men had been stuck down killed and wounded, and the reality of battle set the Yankee's determination in the assault.
 
The general officers from Cox's Woods now sped staff officers off on horse back prompting the divisions in the rear to make haste with their arrival. The Virginians were now reloading their artillery pieces only to find that the Federals had left the road, stamping across Three Miles Creek.
 
A Confederate Columbiad had roared from the walls of Harrison, only when the smoke cleared, the gun was found about the ground completely dismounted.
 
Only an hour or so before the men of the 17th, 23rd and 63rd Tennessee Infantries were laughing at how they had been cutting down the troops in their front before New Market Heights, but as Burnham's men and Stannard's Division had approached the walls with a determined effort to capture the bastion, the humor had gone out of them all.
 
John Hughes, a Confederate Guerilla considered lowering the drawbridge and riding out on horseback emptied his pistol into the Yankees attacking the walls, and harmlessly rode back into the fortifications. Many of the bluecoats were simply amazed that this man had the brass to do such a thing.
 
The over excertion of Federal Manpower on the run and over the walls drove the defenders out the backside of the fort, trying to save themselves from capture. Brigadier General Hiram Burnham, from Narraguagus (Cherryfield), Maine, went into the attack with his men, and also fell like some of them. He had been shot in abdomen and mortally wounded, he'd pass away later that day.

Federal Troops began to gather up what Confederates remained with the fort, as well the military stores. It was now about 7:00 am, and the raising of the United States Flag over Fort Harrison, had marked the end of this portion of the conflict. So far, all was looking good for the Federal Army of the James.
 
Major General Edward Ord was growing impatient and felt that the operation needed to continue moving along. The Federal Troops within Fort Harrison had lost their military cohesion and the movement slowed down. Ord had gathered the troops within his charge in the area and decided the time was right to move towards the James River and attack Fort Maury, and instead of staying behind to guide the operations, Ord himself chose to lead the attack with what he had.
 
To meet him at the defenses of Fort Maury, was none other than Lieutenant General Richard Ewell himself. Now in overall command of defenses around Richmond itself, Ewell took to the field the moment the Army of the James began attacking, and now was defending Fort Maury along the James River itself.
 
Resistance here would be stiffer. The Confederates how had a bit of time to prepare and met General Ord's attack with tenacity. Only in the midst of striking, Edward Ord received a wound in the right thigh, which was serious enough to order Brigadier General Charles Adam Heckman up to assume command.
 
Heckman had not seen alot of fighting during the war, and was Edward Ord's Second Division commander. Barely able to command a brigade, Heckman found himself in command of a division at first, and one shot placed him in control of the 18th Army Corps. A messenger was sent off for Heckman notifying him of Ord's wounding and that he was now in command, while Ord rode back to Deep Bottom in search of Ulysses S. Grant.
 
The unfortunate thing was that although Ord had placed Heckman in command of the army corps, he left him no instructions or a brief on where the operation presently stood. He was on his own. But lack of imagination would cause Heckman to launch piecemeal and very uncoordinated assaults against Maury, accomplishing nothing more than heavy Federal Casualties.
 
Just before General Ord had arrived at Deep Bottom in search of Grant, the Lieutenant General had left Deep Bottom in search of Butler. He first went on to New Market Heights having been told he could be found there, Butler had out to see the progress of David Birney's 10th Army Corps about to assault Fort Gilmer. Not finding Butler, Grant rode out to take a look at the progress of the assault himself and rode as far as Fort Harrison.
 
Fort Harrison having already been captured and no corps commander, about to tell him otherwise, Grant liked what he saw of the operation and felt that things were moving on according to schedule. He rode back to New Market Heights, still not finding Butler, he simply rode back to Deep Bottom, only moments before, Major General Ord had left Deep Bottom enroute for Bermuda Hundred for medical attention.
 
Major General David Birney, commanding the 10th Army Corps this day, was a proven fighter and very trustworthy on the battlefield. However, today, for whatever reason, he would himself organize piecemeal attacks on Fort Gilmer. Again the USCTs would be used as the assaulting columns, and again these troops would be stand against Hell Unleashed in all it's fury.
 
Fort Gilmer and Maury would fight tenaciously driving back the Federal Attackers time and time again with fearful losses. Fort Harrison would prove to be the only Federal success here, and yet it was a punched hole through Robert E. Lee's outer defenses. The Army of the James knew, and could expect an attack the following day in order to reclaim the lost real estate.
 
Major General Benjamin Butler then made command changes. Having recalled Major General Godfrey Wietzel from North Carolina, he relieved Charles Heckman of command and place Weitzel in his place. Weitzel would move to the front at Fort Harrison and ready it for the assault the following day, 30 September, that they all knew was coming.
 
The night of 29-30 September, the 18th Army Corps was busy throwing up new earthworks, now facing the west towards Chaffin's Farm, the Confederate Counter Attacks would be coming from that direction, and now as night past Fort Harrison took on a whole new shape, the backside of the fortifications now being what the Federal Troops named Fort Burnham, in honor of their brigade commander who had fallen that morning.
 
At 2:00 PM the following day, General Robert E. Lee himself would be on the field with the divisions of Charles Field and Robert Hoke in an attempt to take back the lost Fort Harrison. The capture of this fortification was too precious to General Lee and he felt compelled to lead the counter attack himself against it.
 
Placing Robert Hoke's North Carolianians on his right and Charles Field marching into the assault line from Fort Gilmer at the north, both divisions were to step off together. However, one brigade in Charles Field's division was not the same as it had been a year earlier at Gettysburg. Brigadier General Tige Anderson's new 1864 troops were almost as green as those he lead in 1861, and might as well have been. They stepped off for the attack before the other two brigades had pulled up along side them and before Robert Hoke had gotten his division of Tarheels into place further to the right.
 
From here on out, the coordinated attacks planned by Robert E. Lee, would continue the rest of the day being fed into the fight piecemeal one brigade at a time. Major General Robert Hoke had been slow to get his division into line and practically uncooperative when it came to lending support in the attack.
 
Again within these fortifications came the popping sounds of the 10th New Hampshire and the 118th New York Infantries. The Spencer Rifles were tearing holes into the Georgians of Tige Anderson's division, and then continued to litter the field with more Confederate casualties as Charles Field's brigades began to assault the works at Burnham.
 
It was hopeless, all General Lee could do was to readjust his outer works surrounding Richmond just a bit closer to the city itself. Despite all his efforts, Fort Harrison could not be retaken. Although Richmond itself would have to wait another six months before capture, the Federal Army of the James had gotten Grant's armies just that much closer to the Confederate Capitol itself, but yet it still remained the vocal point of a rebelious government.
 
The Army of the Potomac south of the James River had taken Fort Archer south of the city, had advanced as far as Peeble's Farm, but had been driven back from the real estate surrounding Jones' Farm, and had to give up any attempt of capturing the Boydton Plank Road and possibly the Southside Railroad as well.
 
All offensive movements of both the Army of the James and Army of the Potomac could not ultimately reach its objectives and once again have to go to trench warfare through October and November and spend one more winter opposite it's Confederate Counterparts at Petersburg.