North Anna

Fought between May 23 and 26, 1864, the engagement at North Anna formed one chapter in Grant's Overland Campaign, pitting the Union commander against Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Rather than a single major clash, the fighting unfolded as scattered skirmishes along the North Anna River in the heart of Virginia. Historians sometimes label these separate clashes individually: the fights at Telegraph Road Bridge and Jericho Mills both occurred on May 23, as did the actions at Ox Ford, Quarles Mill, and Hanover Junction.

Having pulled his forces away from the deadlocked fighting at Spotsylvania Court House, Grant pushed southeast in hopes of drawing Lee out for a decisive fight on unobstructed terrain. Lee, however, reached his next defensive line south of the river first, though he remained uncertain of Grant's plans and had not yet built substantial fortifications. On the twenty-third of May, Warren's V Corps crossed the river at Jericho Mills, establishing a foothold that a Confederate division from A.P. Hill's corps failed to eliminate. Meanwhile, Hancock's II Corps overran a modest Confederate garrison at what became known as Henagan's Redoubt, thereby capturing the Telegraph Road crossing at Chesterfield Bridge, though his men pushed no farther south across the water.

Overnight, Lee and his engineers conceived a defensive layout resembling an inverted V, designed to divide the advancing Union forces and let the Confederates strike one isolated wing using interior lines before the other could come to its aid. For a time, the plan worked as intended. Hancock's assault against the eastern arm of the V collapsed on May 24, and a brigade led by the inebriated General Ledlie met defeat in a poorly conceived charge against the fortified apex at Ox Ford. Yet fortune favored the Union side in one crucial respect: Lee himself fell ill with heart trouble, and none of his officers proved capable of carrying out his intended counterstroke. According to historian Gary Gallagher, this marks the sole instance where

Background

Grant, newly installed as general-in-chief, had set in motion a set of coordinated offensives against the Confederacy known as the Overland Campaign. As May 1864 wore on, only two of these pushes remained active: Sherman's drive toward Atlanta, and the Overland Campaign itself, where Grant traveled alongside Meade's Army of the Potomac, overseeing its operations directly. Richmond was not truly Grant's target; rather, he sought to annihilate Lee's army in the field. Lincoln had pressed this very approach on his commanders for years, understanding that the Confederate capital would fall on its own once its main defending force was gone. Grant made his instructions to Meade plain: wherever Lee moved, the Army of the Potomac would follow. He preferred a swift and decisive engagement, yet he was equally willing to grind Lee down through sustained losses, knowing the Union's superior manpower and supplies could absorb heavy casualties better than the Confederacy could.

The two armies first collided on May 5, once Grant's forces had crossed the Rapidan and pushed into the tangled woods of the Wilderness near Spotsylvania. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia struck despite being badly outnumbered, roughly 60,000 troops against 100,000, and the thick underbrush gave his men a defensive edge that partly offset the disparity. Two days of brutal combat left nearly 29,000 men dead, wounded, or missing, yet settled nothing. Lee had checked Grant's advance without driving him away, and Grant had failed to break Lee's army. Earlier Union generals facing this same deadlock would have pulled back across the Rappahannock. Grant chose otherwise, directing Meade to swing around Lee's right and seize the vital road junction at Spotsylvania Court House to the southeast. He hoped that placing his forces between Lee and Richmond might force another confrontation on ground more favorable to the Union.

Confederate units, however, reached the crossroads first and began digging in before the Federals arrived. Frustrated with the cavalry's showing under Sheridan, Meade freed him from his usual duties of scouting and shielding the main army so he could hunt down and defeat Stuart's Confederate horsemen. Sheridan's troopers dealt Stuart a fatal wound during the inconclusive fight at Yellow Tavern on May 11, then pressed on toward Richmond, leaving Grant and Meade to operate without the reconnaissance their cavalry normally provided.

For nearly two weeks, from May 8 to May 21, combat flared on and off around Spotsylvania Court House as Grant probed for a weakness in Lee's defenses. On the eighth, Warren and Sedgwick failed to drive Anderson's Confederates from Laurel Hill, a position barring their path to the courthouse. Two days later, Grant pushed attacks all along the Confederate earthworks, by then stretching more than four miles and featuring a bulging salient called the Mule Shoe. The Union effort at Laurel Hill again came up empty, but Upton's inventive assault against the Mule Shoe hinted at a better way forward.

Building on Upton's method, Grant committed far larger numbers on May 12, sending Hancock's 15,000 soldiers against the Mule Shoe. Hancock broke through at first, but Confederate officers regrouped and threw the attackers back. Along the salient's western face, ground that earned the name Bloody Angle, Wright's men endured almost a full day of savage, close-quarters fighting, among the fiercest witnessed in the entire war. Efforts by Warren and Burnside meant to support the main assault went nowhere.

Seeking still another chance to catch Lee at a disadvantage, Grant shifted his lines and ordered Hancock forward one last time on May 18, without success. The next day, Ewell sent Confederate troops on a probing attack at Harris farm that cost heavily and achieved nothing. When the fighting finally died down, neither side had gained a clear advantage, though the toll, nearly 32,000 casualties combined, made it the blood

Initial movements

After the fighting at Spotsylvania ended, Grant turned his attention southward, aiming for the North Anna River some 25 miles away and the vital rail crossing just beyond it at Hanover Junction, known today as Doswell, Virginia. Capturing both points would sever Lee's supply route and rob the Confederates of their next natural defensive position, compelling them to fight in open ground where Union forces held the advantage. Recognizing that Lee could likely win a direct footrace to the river, Grant instead crafted a different approach. He sent Hancock's II Corps southeast toward Milford Station as a lure, gambling that Lee would strike at this seemingly exposed unit. Should Lee take the bait, the remaining three Union corps would fall upon him; if not, nothing would be lost, and Hancock's men might simply beat Lee to the North Anna.

Hancock's 20,000 troops set out under cover of darkness on the night of May 20 into May 21, protected by three c

Aftermath

Just as he had done following Wilderness and Spotsylvania, Grant once again looked to slide his army around Lee's flank, this time pushing east across the Pamunkey River to keep his intentions hidden from the Confederates. On May 22 he directed that the supply depots located at Belle Plain, Aquia Landing, and Fredericksburg be relocated to a fresh base at Port Royal, Virginia, along the Rappahannock. Within six days that base shifted once more, this time from Port Royal to White House on the Pamunkey. Brig. Gen. James H. Wilson's cavalry division received orders to push across the North Anna and head west, a maneuver meant to convince Lee that the Federals were aiming to wrap around the Confederate left. During this operation the horsemen tore up additional stretches of the Virginia Central Railroad, though they encountered little in the way of enemy resistance. Once darkness fell on May 26, Wright and Warren pulled back quietly and slipped across the North Anna. The following day, May 27, they pushed eastward toward the Pamunkey crossings near Hanovertown, while Burnside and Hancock stayed behind to hold the fords along the North Anna. By then Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan's Union cavalry had rejoined the army to cover its advance. Cold Harbor, an important crossroads lying twenty five miles to the southeast, stood as the campaign's next objective.

The confidence Grant carried, along with his hesitance to hurl troops against fortified positions, would soon face a harsh trial at Cold Harbor. For the moment, though, North Anna ranked as a fairly modest engagement set against the broader scale of the war. Over its four days the fighting cost the Union 2,623 casualties. No figures survive for Confederate losses, but given how fierce the clash between A.P. Hill and Warren became, their toll likely fell somewhere between 1,500 and 2,500.