The Battle of Port Walthall Junction was fought May 6–7, 1864, between Union and Confederate forces during the Bermuda Hundred Campaign of the American Civil War. Although initially successful, the Confederates were eventually defeated, allowing Union forces to cut a railroad. The Port Walthall Junction on the Richmond-Petersburg Railroad connected with the spur to Port Walthall.
In conjunction with the opening of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler's Army of the James, 33,000 strong, disembarked from transports at Bermuda Hundred on May 5, threatening the Richmond-Petersburg Railroad. On May 6, Confederate Brig. Gen. Johnson Hagood's brigade stopped initial Federal probes at Port Walthall Junction. On May 7, a Union division drove Hagood's and Brig. Gen. Bushrod Johnson's brigades from the depot and cut the railroad at Port Walthall Junction. Confederate defenders retired behind Swift Run Creek and awaited reinforcements.
Union casualties were more than 300, Confederates fewer than 200, primarily from Hagood's brigade.
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Park Service.
Salmon, John S. The Official Virginia Civil War Battlefield Guide. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2001. ISBN 0-8117-2868-4.
Battle animation, Chesterfield Historical Society of Virginia.
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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