The Battle of Fair Oaks & Darbytown Road (also known as the Second Battle of Fair Oaks) was fought on October 27–28, 1864, in Henrico County, Virginia, as part of the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign of the American Civil War.
In combination with movements against the Boydton Plank Road at Petersburg, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler attacked the Richmond defenses along Darbytown Road with the X Corps. The XVIII Corps marched north to Fair Oaks where it was soundly repulsed by Maj. Gen. Charles W. Field's Confederate division. Confederate forces counterattacked, taking some 600 prisoners. The Richmond defenses remained intact. Of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's offensives north of the James River, this was repulsed most easily. The Medal of Honor was awarded to First Lieutenant William Rufus Shafter for his actions. Union casualties were 1,603, Confederates fewer than 100.
The following Union Army units and commanders fought in the Battle of Fair Oaks & Darbytown Road. It is compiled from the official tabulation of casualties, so includes only units which sustained casualties.
The following Confederate army units and commanders fought at the battle.
Salmon, John S. The Official Virginia Civil War Battlefield Guide. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2001. ISBN 0-8117-2868-4.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
This page covers Battle of Fair Oaks and Darbytown Road (Oct 27-28). A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
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