Lynchburg

On June 17 and 18, 1864, Confederate and Union forces clashed just beyond Lynchburg, Virginia, in an engagement that drew more than 30,000 combatants from both the cavalry and infantry. Major General David Hunter led the Union Army of West Virginia in a bid to seize the city, but his slow advance gave Confederate reinforcements the opening they needed to organize a defense. Lieutenant General Jubal Early, commanding the Confederate response, drove Hunter's men back, with part of Early's force reaching the field on the opening day of combat. Once the fighting ended, Confederate troops chased the retreating Federals all the way into West Virginia.

Lynchburg held great strategic value for the Confederacy. Three separate railroad lines converged there alongside a navigable canal, and the town also housed military hospitals while serving as a hub for distributing food and war supplies. Telegraph wires running beside the tracks let Confederate command in Richmond stay in contact with outposts in western Virginia and Tennessee. Given these advantages, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant had pushed for Hunter to strike the city and disable its rail connections.

Defeat at Lynchburg forced Hunter to pull back westward into West Virginia, and in doing so he left the Shenandoah Valley exposed all the way to Maryland. Early seized this opportunity, marching down the valley and posing a direct threat to Washington, DC, until Union forces stopped him at the Battle of Fort Stevens on July 11 and 12. That engagement unfolded less than four miles, or 6.4 kilometers, from the White House, and afterward Early pulled his army back toward the Shenandoah Valley. Later, on July 30, he dispatched cavalry under Brigadier General John McCausland into Pennsylvania, where they set fire to the town of Chambersburg.

Background

In March of 1864 Ulysses S. Grant took command of every Union army, and his plan for Virginia called for hitting Lee's Army of Northern Virginia from several directions at once. Part of that plan meant choking off the supply network feeding Lee's forces near Richmond, a network rooted in western Virginia. Staunton and Lynchburg served as the two crucial depots, sitting 99 miles (159 km) from one another and each more than 120 miles (190 km) west of Richmond itself. Because rail lines ran through both towns and carried troops as well as goods, those railroads became Union objectives too.

Lynchburg held particular importance as the eastern end of the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad, while the Orange & Alexandria and South Side Railroads offered further routes toward Richmond from that point. The James River and Kanawha Canal linked Lynchburg to Richmond as well, providing a slower alternative for moving people and materials. A telegraph connected Richmond with Lynchburg and also linked Lynchburg to Knoxville, Tennessee. Beyond its transportation value, Lynchburg housed medical stores and several hospitals.

Grant's design called for Franz Sigel to march his Army of the Shenandoah south through the valley and seize Staunton, a station along the Virginia Central Railroad. Meanwhile George Crook would push his West Virginia army against the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, and a cavalry detachment under William W. Averell, drawn from Crook's command, would strike the same line farther west, targeting salt mines along a branch route. Once these operations succeeded, Crook and Averell were to unite with Sigel at Staunton, after which the combined force intended to move on Lynchburg.

Sigel set out from Martinsburg, West Virginia, on April 29 but never reached his objective. John C. Breckinridge's Confederate army stopped him on May 15 at the Battle of New Market, forcing a retreat north to Cedar Creek. Lee then called Breckinridge eastward, and his division reached Lee's army by May 20.

Farther west, Crook secured victory at Cloyd's Mountain on May 9 and, the following day, destroyed the New River bridge on the Virginia & Tennessee line near Central Depot, northeast of Wytheville. Averell decided against assaulting the heavily defended salt mines and, on May 10 at the Battle of Cove Mountain, was blocked from reaching the lead mines as well. With no word from Sigel, both commanders pulled back toward Meadow Bluff, West Virginia, arriving safely there on May 19.

David Hunter took over from Sigel on May 21. By June 5 he had advanced south through the valley and won the Battle of Piedmont. According to Hunter's own estimate, Confederate casualties numbered around 600 killed or wounded, with more than 1,000 taken prisoner. Among the dead was William E. "Grumble" Jones, the Confederate commander at Piedmont. The following day Hunter's forces entered Staunton unopposed, and he spent several days there wrecking Confederate military stores while awaiting Crook's arrival.

Writing to Hunter on June 6, Grant instructed him to strike the "Lynchburg branch of the Virginia Central" line at Lynchburg itself and pressed him to wreck the nearby James River and Kanawha Canal. On June 8, Crook's Army of West Virginia, with Averell's cavalry included, linked up with Hunter, bringing much needed boots and uniforms for the troops. Hunter then consolidated his cavalry forces into two divisions.

In response to the loss at Piedmont, Lee dispatched Breckinridge with two brigades from around Richmond toward the Shenandoah Valley, though Breckinridge himself was recovering from an injury caused when his horse fell on him in an earlier fight. On June 7 the brigades, under Gabriel C. Wharton, left Richmond by rail without their commander and traveled until reaching the vicinity of Rockfish Gap and Waynesboro by the evening of June 8. Also gathered at Rockfish Gap were John D. Imboden's cavalry and what remained of Jones' defeated army.

Breckinridge himself came by train into Charlottesville on the morning of June 9, joining roughly 5,000 infantrymen drawn from Wharton's brigades and the survivors of Jones' command. Further west stood a cavalry brigade under John McCausland, which, once added, would swell Confederate moun

Battle, June 18

In the pre-dawn hours, just past two o'clock, Early repositioned Breckinridge's brigades, Forsberg and Patton among them, shifting them west from the inner defenses to link up with his own line near the Salem Pike on the outer perimeter. Hunter's army, meanwhile, found itself running short on ammunition and provisions while sitting deep within hostile country. Every delay suffered on the march from Staunton to Lynchburg had chipped away at his numerical edge, since each lost hour gave Confederate reinforcements more time to reach the field. The primary Federal line facing Lynchburg from the west started around three miles south of Forest Road and ran down past the Salem Pike, and the wooded, hilly ground favored the defenders in gray.

Spotting that Confederate works had grown stronger, Hunter looked for gaps he might exploit. He dispatched Colonel Powell's cavalry brigade, drawn from Averell's division, far out to the Union right, sending it east through Campbell County by way of Campbell Court House. From that position Powell could swing north toward the south side of Lynchburg along the Campbell Court House Road. An infantry brigade and two guns were attached to support him. Hunter's plan called for a three-pronged approach to the city: Duffié along Forest Road, the bulk of his army on the Salem Pike, and Powell coming up the Campbell Court House Road.

Powell set his column moving under cover of darkness, sometime between late on the seventeenth and the small hours of the eighteenth. Knowing that couriers had been losing their way in the unfamiliar dark countryside, he enlisted a local resident to guide his men. Hours of wandering through the hills eventually convinced him that the guide meant to lead his force astray, so the man was put to death and the march continued. Powell's troops pressed close enough to threaten Campbell Court House itself, pushing back some of Imboden's horsemen, and came near enough to Lynchburg to make out its church steeples in the distance.

Rough ground separating Forest Road from the Salem Pike made it nearly impossible for messengers to reach Duffié, leaving him without orders through the early morning. Acting on his own judgment, he pushed his column forward along Forest Road as the day began. Near nine o'clock he ran into McCausland's skirmishers, and the fighting grew fiercer close to the railroad bridge spanning Ivy Creek. Duffié pressed the attack and forced McCausland away from the span before it could be destroyed outright. At half past ten a rider from Averell arrived bearing orders to press on, along with assurances of reinforcement. Duffié pushed forward again, forcing the Confederates back toward Backwater Creek, roughly two miles from town, where a concealed body of infantry brought his advance to a halt. Clouds of dust on the horizon left him convinced his left was threatened, and soon his right flank seemed equally exposed. Close to five in the afternoon, a Confederate charge backed by artillery drove him back over Backwater Creek.

Even though he had pushed the Confederates back on two separate occasions, Duffié remained convinced the enemy outnumbered him. This conviction grew partly from what looked like the arrival of fresh troops from Rodes's division, though in truth Confederate Brigadier General Wharton had simply marched his men back and forth to create the illusion of greater numbers. Duffié's warnings to Hunter about a swelling Confederate force likely deepened Hunter's own anxieties. The historian Charles Minor Blackford later argued that a Union approach from the north, through Judge Daniel's Rivermont farm east of Duffié's line, would have met little resistance, since Early lacked the manpower to guard that side of Lynchburg.

Along the Salem Pike, the fighting developed more sluggishly than it had near Forest Road. Although additional troops had reached Early before daybreak, others were still on the way. Anticipating a Union push once the sun rose, Early opened up with his artillery against Federal positions at first light.

Hunter moved his skirmish line forward carefully along the pike, with two infantry divisions and supporting artillery close behind, while Averell's cavalry stayed back in reserve. Sullivan's infantry held the Union left, Du Pont's guns sat astride the pike in the center, and Crook's infantry anchored the right, with part of Averell's horsemen covering the far right flank. In an effort to turn the Confederate left, Crook's division shifted further right, a move that left Sullivan and one of his brigade commanders une

Retreat

At dinnertime on June 18, Hunter settled on a plan to pull his army back. Pickets moved forward toward the Confederate positions to mask the withdrawal, while the bulk of his men slipped away in silence, forbidden from lighting campfires. Those pickets kept pressure on the Confederate lines all the way until midnight.

To the north, Duffié got word from Averell around seven that evening instructing him to push forward, only to receive a second message soon afterward stating the army was pulling out. Nothing further arrived. He held his position until ten o'clock hoping for clarification, then, hearing nothing, started his own withdrawal westward along Forest Road. Three miles into this movement he stopped and dispatched a captain to locate Hunter. The captain returned with news that the army had already gone. Duffié pressed on through the night and eventually located Hunter's rear guard some four miles outside Liberty.

Meanwhile, southeast of the main body, Powell learned early on June 19 that the retreat was underway, a message that caught his officers off guard and left them fearing isolation from the rest of the force. Staying clear of the main road, they made their way back and rejoined the retreating column near New London around dawn that same day. Hunter judged that heading northeast down the Shenandoah Valley would delay resupply too long and might let Early strike his flank or rear, so he opted instead for the safer path northwest into West Virginia. Duffié's horsemen rode at the front of the column while Averell's cavalry covered the rear.

Just past midnight, Early began to suspect the Federals had slipped away, though he could not yet tell whether this was a genuine retreat or simply a repositioning around Lynchburg. By daybreak on June 19 it was clear Hunter had gone, and Early set off after him. His corps advanced west

Aftermath

Crook had worried that Hunter's force would move too slowly toward Lynchburg, and events proved him right. Because the march took an indirect path and suffered numerous holdups, Confederate reinforcements reached the city with time to spare and beat back the threat. Hunter himself squandered precious hours setting fire to buildings, then attempted to shift responsibility for the delays onto other officers. He suggested, in his own account, that his supply train together with Duffié and Averell bore the blame for slowing the advance. Much later, Jubal Early addressed the episode in his autobiography, where an extended footnote characterized Hunter's failure to press forward from Staunton as extraordinary, adding that a swifter push would have swept aside McCausland's modest force and delivered Lynchburg, along with its factories and depots, into Confederate hands before help could arrive.

Hunter's withdrawal into West Virginia had the effect of clearing the Shenandoah Valley for Early's use. Following a brief rest, Early set his troops in motion down the Valley on June 23, heading for the Potomac. He won an engagement at Monocacy, close to Frederick, Maryland, on July 9, then pushed on toward the capital by way of Rockville. Starting July 11 and coming within about five miles of the White House, his forces menaced Washington for a pair of days during the fighting at Fort Stevens before pulling back. Once he had withdrawn to the Shenandoah Valley again, Early dispatched cavalry into Pennsylvania, where they set the town of Chambersburg ablaze.