Battle of Jerusalem Plank Road - Battle

Battle

On June 21, elements of the II Corps probed toward the railroad and skirmished with Confederate cavalry. The plan of attack was that both the II and VI Corps would cross the Jerusalem Plank Road and then pivot northwest about 2 miles (3.2 km) to reach the railroad. Difficult terrain—swamps and thickets—slowed their advance and by the morning of June 22, a gap opened up between the two corps. While the II Corps began pivoting as planned, the VI Corps encountered Confederate troops from Maj. Gen. Cadmus Wilcox's division of Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill's corps and they began to entrench rather than advance. Brig. Gen. William Mahone, another division commander in Hill's corps, observed that the gap between the two Union corps was widening, creating a prime target.

Mahone had been a railroad engineer before the war and had personally surveyed this area south of Petersburg, so he was familiar with a ravine that could be used to hide the approach of a Confederate attack column. Robert E. Lee approved Mahone's plan and at 3 p.m. on June 22, Mahone's men emerged in the rear of the II Corps division of Brig. Gen. Francis C. Barlow, catching them by surprise. A soldier wrote, "The attack was to the Union troops more than a surprise. It was an astonishment."

With a wild yell which rang out shrill and fierce through the gloomy pines, Mahone's men burst upon the flank—a pealing volley, which roared along the whole front—a stream of wasting fire, under which the adverse left fell as one man—and the bronzed veterans swept forward, shriveling up Barlow's division as lightning shrivels the dead leaves of autumn.

Diary of W. Gordon McCabe, artilleryman in Mahone's division

Barlow's division quickly collapsed under the surprise assault. The division of Brig. Gen. John Gibbon, which had erected earthworks, was also surprised by an attack from the rear and many of the regiments ran for safety. Mahone sent an urgent message to his colleague Wilcox, asking him to join in the attack, but Wilcox was concerned about the VI Corps men to his front and the two regiments he sent in support arrived too late to make a difference. The II Corps troops rallied around earthworks that they had constructed on the night of June 21 and stabilized their lines. Darkness ended the fighting.

On June 23, the II Corps advanced to retake its lost ground, but the Confederates had pulled back, abandoning the earthworks they had captured. Under orders from General Meade, the VI Corps sent out a heavy skirmish line after 10 a.m. in a second attempt to reach the Weldon Railroad. Men from Brig. Gen. Lewis A. Grant's 1st Vermont Brigade had begun tearing up track when they were attacked by a larger force of Confederate infantry. Numerous Vermonters were taken prisoner and only about .5 miles (0.80 km) of track had been destroyed when they were chased away. Meade repeatedly urged Horatio G. Wright to move forward and engage the enemy, but Wright refused to move, concerned that his corps would suffer the same reverses as the II Corps the previous day. At 7:35 p.m., Meade gave up and told Wright, "Your delay has been fatal." Meade's aide Theodore Lyman wrote, "On this particular occasion Wright showed himself totally unfit to command a corps."