Trevilian Station

Fought over two days, June 11 and 12, 1864, the clash at Trevilian Station (sometimes spelled Trevilians) unfolded as part of Grant's Overland Campaign, pitting Union forces against Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. This engagement pitted mounted troops against one another exclusively, making it the war's largest and deadliest battle fought entirely by cavalry. Sheridan led Union horsemen against Confederate riders commanded by Hampton and Fitzhugh Lee.

Three goals drove Sheridan's expedition: wrecking portions of the Virginia Central Railroad, drawing Confederate cavalry away so they would not detect Grant's intended James River crossing, and joining forces with Hunter's army near Charlottesville. Hampton's troopers reached the railroad ahead of their opponents, and the two sides fought each other to exhaustion without resolution on the eleventh. Meanwhile, Custer pushed into territory behind Confederate lines and seized Hampton's supply wagons, only to find himself trapped and fighting fiercely just to survive.

The following day brought renewed fighting northwest of the station, where Torbert's division launched seven separate attacks, all thrown back with severe casualties. Facing this, Sheridan pulled his men back toward Grant's main force. Though the Confederates emerged with the tactical upper hand, denying Sheridan his hoped-for permanent destruction of the railroad and preventing his union with Hunter's command, the diversion it created likely helped Grant cross the James River without interference.

Background

After the costly failure of Union forces at Cold Harbor on June 3, Grant turned to a different approach. His Overland Campaign, underway since May 4, had unfolded as a series of large engagements with Lee's army, at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, North Anna, Totopotomoy Creek, and Cold Harbor. In each case a period of deadlock gave way to Grant shifting around Lee's right flank, hoping to lure the Confederates out of their fortified positions and into open combat. With every such movement the two armies drew nearer to Richmond, yet capturing the Confederate capital was never truly the point. Grant and President Lincoln had agreed that the real objective was destroying Lee's army, on the assumption that both Richmond and the Confederacy itself would collapse once Lee was beaten.

The plan Grant now settled on called for shifting his entire force of 100,000 men southward, crossing the James River, and taking Petersburg, a critical railroad center. Doing so would sever the lines supplying both Richmond and Lee's troops, likely compelling the abandonment of the capital, and possibly provoking Lee into an assault where Grant's advantages in manpower and firepower would tell. Success depended on concealment, since the army would be exposed during the river crossing, and Grant wanted his men at Petersburg before its garrison, currently only a minimal force, could be reinforced.

With this in mind, Grant on June 5 dispatched Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan's cavalry on a raid toward Charlottesville in the northwest. This mission served two purposes at the outset. It would pull Confederate horsemen away from the main Union force, giving Grant's infantry the chance to quietly slip away from Lee's lines at Cold Harbor and head for the James. It would also allow Sheridan's troopers to wreck the Virginia Central Railroad leading into Richmond, severing Lee's connection to the vital food stores of the Shenandoah Valley. Specifically, Sheridan was to demolish the railroad bridge spanning the Rivanna River just out

Start of Sheridan's raid

At 5 a.m. on June 7, Sheridan set out with his two cavalry divisions from their camps north of Cold Harbor. Gregg's division led the way, with Torbert's men behind, and the column pushed northwest after crossing the Pamunkey River on a pontoon bridge at New Castle. Heat pressed down on the marchers, and thick dust rose in great clouds above them as they went. That first day yielded only about 15 miles of progress. Many horses gave out under the punishing pace, and, just as Sheridan had done during his earlier raid toward Yellow Tavern and Richmond in May, the animals were put down and abandoned by the roadside. A supply train of 125 wagons trailed the force, yet the troopers carried just three days of rations and had to sustain themselves and their mounts through foraging, sending dismounted parties ranging out from the main body. The next day brought swifter movement, with Torbert now at the front, and the Federals managed 25 miles before reaching Pole Cat Station along the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad. Beyond the oppressive summer heat and humidity, clashes with scattered mounted raiders further slowed the Union advance.

Word of these Federal movements reached Hampton through his scouts on the morning of June 8. He suspected, correctly, that Sheridan meant to strike the rail junctions at Gordonsville and Charlottesville, and he understood that speed would be essential to intercept him. Hampton arranged for his division to gather by 2 a.m. on June 9, with instructions for Fitzhugh Lee to trail behind as quickly as possible. Though the Union force held a two-day advantage, the Confederates could rely on a shorter path, roughly 45 miles compared to 65, and on ground they knew far better. Marching on June 9, exactly one year after Brandy Station had been fought, Hampton's men kept a steady, unhurried pace, covering close to 30 miles by way of Yellow Tavern, along the Telegraph Road, and then tracing the Virginia Central Railroad toward Bumpass and Fredericks Hall Stations.

By nightfall on June 10, both armies had drawn together near Trevilian Station, a place named for Charles Goodall Trevilian, whose plantation house stood close by. Hampton's troops settled into four separate camps just south of the Virginia Central along the Gordonsville Road, stretching from a point west of Trevilian Station eastward to Louisa Court House. Meanwhile, the Union cavalry had forded the North Anna River at Carpenters Ford and made camp in the vicinity of Clayton's Store.

Battle

On the morning of June 11, bugle calls from the enemy camp roused Hampton from sleep, with Rosser and Butler having already alerted him. His brigade commanders had gotten their own men up before this. When Rosser inquired what the general planned to do that day, Hampton answered simply that he intended to fight.

A slave who had served both as a servant to General Rosser and to Union officers informed Hampton that Sheridan's men would come at the railroad from the Clayton's Store direction. Hampton understood that two roads ran south from that crossroads through dense timber, one toward Trevilian Station and the other toward Louisa Court House. His plan called for dividing his forces to cover both roads and then closing in on the Federals at the crossroads, driving Sheridan back toward the North Anna River. He personally led Butler's and Wright's brigades away from Trevilian, leaving Rosser's brigade behind on the left to guard against a flanking move. Fitzhugh Lee's division received orders to move up from Louisa Court House and form the right side of the Confederate line.

As the Confederates set their advance in motion, Sheridan did the same. Merritt's and Devin's brigades, under Torbert, headed down the Trevilian road, while Custer's brigade moved toward Louisa Court House. Fighting first broke out on the Trevilian road when the 4th South Carolina Cavalry, part of Butler's command, met Merritt's skirmishers. Hampton had his troopers dismount and drove the skirmish line back into the woods, all the while anticipating Fitzhugh Lee's arrival on his flank. Being badly outnumbered, though, he was soon compelled to retreat. Wright's Brigade entered the brutal fighting in the underbrush but likewise gave ground after hours of combat, falling back within view of the station. Members of Hampton's staff complained that Fitz Lee's failure to reinforce him stemmed from his reluctance to serve under any commander besides Stuart.

Meanwhile, on the Confederate right, Fitzhugh Lee ran into Custer's advancing brigade. Wickham's men briefly skirmished with the 1st and 7th Michigan Cavalry before pulling back. Lee then pushed Lomax's Brigade straight toward the station while Wickham circled through Louisa Court House to strike from behind. Custer, taking a more direct southwestern route, reached Trevilian Station and discovered it essentially defenseless, guarded only by Hampton's supply trains: wagons, ammunition caissons, food stores, and hundreds of horses. He sent the 5th Michigan Cavalry in to seize everything, which they accomplished with great energy, capturing 800 prisoners, 90 wagons, six caissons, and 1,500 horses. This success, however, isolated Custer from the rest of Sheridan's command, and chasing down scattered wagons cost his men casualties and much of what they had taken. The 7th Georgia, from Wright's brigade, managed to wedge itself between Custer and the station, prompting Custer to send the 7th Michigan forward to push the Georgians back.

Learning of this danger developing behind him, Hampton pulled Rosser's Brigade off the left flank and sent it toward the station, where it joined Lee's approaching force from Louisa Court House along with Wright's and Butler's men. Custer's fortune reversed abruptly as pressure mounted against him from three directions near the station. He began withdrawing along the Gordonsville Road with his captured supplies still in tow, but had not spotted a Confederate horse artillery battery positioned on a hill to the north, which began shelling his column as soon as it came into range. His right flank then absorbed further blows from Hampton's advancing brigades.

Surrounded on nearly every side and struck by both charges and artillery fire, Custer's command found itself trapped within a tightening perimeter. The historian Eric J. Wittenberg later called this ordeal "Custer's First Last Stand," a phrase pointing ahead to his eventual fate at Little Bighorn. Fearing capture of his flag as his command seemed on the verge of being overrun, Custer tore it free from its staff after the color bearer fell, and concealed it inside his coat. Sheridan, hearing the gunfire from Custer's position, recognized the need to act and led charges by Devin's and Merritt's brigades that forced Hampton's troops back toward the station. At the same time, he ordered Gregg's brigade to strike

Aftermath

The outcome at Trevilian Station left both sides with claims to make and questions unanswered. Union forces suffered 1,007 casualties, broken down into 102 dead, 470 wounded, and 435 listed as missing or captured. On the Confederate side, the official figure of 612 only accounted for Hampton's Division, and historians now regard 831 as a more accurate total. No cavalry engagement in the war produced more bloodshed or involved more combatants on both sides than this one.

Sheridan himself never wavered in calling it a triumph for his side. Writing in 1866, he described the outcome as one of unbroken success, claiming the rebel cavalry had been nearly wiped out and that his forces moved freely, always on the offensive, always victorious. Grant's own memoirs echoed this view, and a number of Sheridan's biographers have taken his assessment at face value. Viewed purely as a diversionary maneuver, the operation did achieve something for the Union: Lee remained unaware that Grant's army had slipped away and crossed the James River until the assault on the weakened defenses at Petersburg finally revealed the truth.

Even so, Sheridan came up short on two fronts that mattered greatly. The Virginia Central Railroad, which he had hoped to cripple, was back in working order within a fortnight, and supplies kept moving to Lee's men without lasting interruption. Just as troubling, the intended meeting with Hunter never materialized. Hunter went on to lose the Battle of Lynchburg on June 17 and 18 against Lt. Gen. Jubal Early, and his retreat carried him deep into Maryland. Eric J. Wittenberg, whose 2007 book examined the battle in detail, argues that had Sheridan managed to wreck the rail line, Early might have been forced to turn his attention toward Sheridan rather than Hunter, potentially allowing Hunter to seize Lynchburg. Wittenberg goes so far as to brand the engagement an "unmitigated disaster" for the Union cavalry, insisting that no part of it can honestly be labeled a victory for that side.

One lasting distinction to emerge from the fighting involved Frank Furness, later known as an architect, who received the Medal of Honor for his conduct during the battle.