The Battle of Morton's Ford was a battle of the American Civil War, fought February 6–7, 1864.
To distract attention from a planned cavalry-infantry raid up the Virginia Peninsula on Richmond, the Union Army of the Potomac forced several crossings of the Rapidan River on February 6, 1864. Units of the II Corps under Maj. Gen. John C. Caldwell crossed at Morton's Ford, the I Corps at Raccoon Ford, and Union cavalry at Robertson's Ford. Confederate Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell's Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia resisted the crossings, with sporadic fighting and the most severe fighting at Morton's Ford. By February 7, 1864, the attacks had stalled, and the Union army withdrew during the night, with the results of the battle inconclusive.
Union Major General Benjamin Butler, commanding the Army of the James in Fort Monroe, learned that General Robert E. Lee had detached a small portion of the Army of Northern Virginia to North Carolina. Convinced that Lee had sent a larger detachment than he actually did, Butler was convinced that an attack by the Army of the Potomac would force Lee to use troops from the defenses of Richmond to ward off the attack. Major General John Sedgwick, temporarily commanding the Army of the Potomac, protested that Lee had detached fewer men than Butler thought and that the local roads and weather were too poor for a winter attack. However, both Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton and general-in-chief Henry W. Halleck overruled his objections and ordered him to make the attack on February 6.
The demonstration would take place near Morton's Ford, near a bend in the Rapidan River which formed a mile wide patch of land. Major General Edward Johnson's division of Richard Ewell's Second Corps had dug a series of entrenchments across the base of the bend. The Union II Corps, temporarily under the command of John C. Caldwell due to the illness of Gouverneur K. Warren, would move to Morton's Ford, with the I Corps marching to nearby Racoon Ford to the west and the cavalry crossing at Robertson's Ford.
The II Corps reached the ford about 9:30 a.m.; finding a line of pickets along the bank, 3rd Division commander Brigadier General Alexander Hays ordered three hundred men of Brigadier General Joshua Owen's 1st Brigade across the river to drive off the pickets. This was done successfully, resulting in the capture of thirty members of the Stonewall Brigade without any Union losses. The rest of Owen's brigade crossed the river but then encountered heavy artillery fire. Johnson brought up one brigade and parts of two others, along with additional artillery. At 12:30 p.m., Hays received permission from Caldwell to bring the rest of his division across the ford, which took two hours, while Caldwell positioned Union artillery on the heights north of the river; during this time Johnson continued to receive reinforcements.
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.
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