The Harris Farm Engagement was a military engagement between the Union Army and the Confederate States Army. The Harris Farm Engagement was a part of the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse. The battle was led by Union Major General Winfield S. Hancock and Confederate general Richard S. Ewell. The battle was caused when the Union commander, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant ordered Hancock's Union II Corps to trap Confederate soldiers between Richmond and Fredericksburg. Before General Hancock could trap the Confederate soldiers, Confederate General Robert E. Lee ordered Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell, in command of the Confederate Second Corps to ambush General Hancock's troops at the Harris Farm (also known as Bloomsbury Farm).
The Harris Farm Engagement was a part of the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse. At the battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant ordered Gen. Winfield S. Hancock's Federal II Corps to trap receding Confederate troops who were heading to Fredericksburg. Unbeknownst to General Grant, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee heard of this and ordered Richard S. Ewell and the rest of the surviving Confederate Second Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia to ambush Hancock's troops at the Harris Farm. Ewell made camp near the Harris Farm and waited for the Hancock's troops to come near.
When Hancock's troops came into view Ewell had his men fire at them. Ewell then ordered a charge on Hancock's troops. Early in the battle Ewell had the upper hand until Hancock's superior numbers soon gained the control. Both sides quickly began taking heavy casualties, and Ewell began falling back. Grant, who was observing the battle, ordered Hancock to pursue the remaining troops. The battle continued until General Lee, who was also observing the battle, thought this engagement was about to turn into a battle of itself. Lee ordered his troops to disengage and head to Richmond. Grant and Hancock claimed victory, as they had forced a retreat of the enemy and officially ended the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse.
The Harris Farm Engagement claimed 1,598 casualties on both sides. The engagement was the end of the long Battle of the Spotsylvania Courthouse.
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 Harris Farm (Spotsylvania). 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:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Wikipedia source.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the US, drawing on NRHP records, battlefield archives, census history and geological data to tell the full story of a place.