Deep Bottom I

Battle

At three in the morning on July 27, Hancock and Sheridan began moving their men across the pontoon bridge. Gibbon's division led the II Corps advance on the left, with Barlow holding the center and Mott positioned on the right. These forces smashed through Confederate rifle pits along the New Market Road, seized four cannons, and pushed onward toward Long Bridge Road. Confederate artillery fire momentarily slowed their progress until Mott's infantrymen managed to silence it, after which the corps settled into position along the eastern bank of Bailey's Creek, stretching from New Market Road to a spot near Fussell's Mill. Meanwhile Sheridan's horsemen climbed toward elevated ground on the right that looked down over the millpond. Torbert's cavalry division seized the heights close to Fussell's Mill, only to be thrown back when Georgia infantrymen from the 10th and 50th regiments launched a counterattack. Given how strong the Confederate defenses were on the far side of Bailey's Creek, Hancock decided against assaulting them and instead used the remainder of the day to scout the terrain.

As Hancock found himself stalled at Bailey's Creek, Lee responded exactly as Grant had anticipated, moving additional troops up from Petersburg. Command of the Deep Bottom area went to Anderson, and Lee dispatched Heth's infantry division along with the cavalry division led by his son, W.H.F. "Rooney" Lee. Additional soldiers were pulled hastily from the Department of Richmond to bolster the defensive lines.

The following morning, July 28, Grant strengthened Hancock's position by adding a brigade from the XIX Corps, a move that allowed Gibbon's division to leave its post on New Market Road and join an assault against the Confederate left flank. Sheridan tried to swing around that flank by pushing toward Gravel Hill, but Confederate forces disrupted this maneuver with an attack of their own. The brigades of Lane, McGowan, and Kershaw (the latter being his former command, since he now led a division) struck at Sheridan's right side. The Union troopers had taken a defensive stance, lying flat just past a low rise in the ground. When the Confederates surged over this crest, they ran into a storm of fire from Union repeating carbines. Federal cavalry held in reserve then charged forward, taking nearly two hundred prisoners in the pursuit. Before retreating back to their own fortifications, the Confederates managed to seize just one Union artillery piece.

Aftermath

By midday on July 28, Hancock had shifted his divisions into position, guaranteeing an unmolested withdrawal back to the crossing at Deep Bottom. With no more fighting to be had, the push toward Richmond and its rail lines came to a close. Grant, convinced the effort had pulled away enough Confederate strength from his front, decided to move forward with the planned attack on the Crater, set for July 30. He instructed Hancock to move Mott's division to the Petersburg trenches that evening, clearing space for the XVIII Corps to take a supporting role in the assault. On July 31, the cavalry along with the rest of the II Corps made their way back across the James.

The toll on the Union side came to 488 casualties, broken down as 62 dead, 340 wounded, and 86 either missing or taken prisoner. Confederate losses were heavier, totaling 679: 80 killed, 391 wounded, and 208 missing or captured. Fighting would return to nearly identical ground when the Second Battle of Deep Bottom unfolded between August 13 and 20, 1864.