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City road, with the view of drawing the
Confederates out of their intrenchments.
He drove their van some distance, and killed their
General Chambliss; but he was soon driven back, and no special advantage to the
Union cause was obtained.
Other efforts to draw the
Confederates from their intrenchments were made, one of which was the sending of a fleet of vessels up to
Deep Bottom on the night of the 16th, to give the impression that the
Union troops were about to be withdrawn.
The deception did not succeed; and after spending two or three days, chiefly in reconnoitering,
Hancock and
Gregg were ordered to return to the lines before
Petersburg.
This they did; by way of
Bermuda Hundred, on the 20th.
Meanwhile,
Birney was attacked
by a heavy force; but after a fight of twenty minutes, in which Miles, with two brigades, participated, the
Confederates were repulsed.
In this demonstration against
Richmond the Nationals lost about five thousand men, and the
Confederates a somewhat less number.
Taking advantage of the absence of many of
Lee's troops from
Petersburg,
Grant made a vigorous movement for securing possession of the
Weldon road, not more than three miles from the left flank of his lines on the Jerusalem plank road.
This movement was made by
Warren, with the Fifth Corps, on the morning of the 18th of August, and at noon he reached the coveted railway without opposition, where he left
Griffin to hold the point seized, while with the divisions of
Ayres and
Crawford he moved toward
Petersburg.
He had marched but a short distance, when a division of Confederates suddenly and heavily fell upon his flank, and plucked from a Maryland brigade two hundred prisoners. That brigade immediately received shelter and aid from the Fifteenth New York Heavy Artillery, acting as infantry, who soon repulsed the assailants.
Warren held the ground he had gained at a cost of one thousand men killed, wounded and prisoners, and from that moment the use of the important Weldon railroad was lost to the
Confederates.
Lee now sent a heavy force, under
Hill, to drive
Warren from the road, and on the following day
that leader flanked the Nationals, and fell furiously upon
Crawford's division in flank and rear, compelling the whole of his force and the right of
Ayres to fall back.
In this struggle
Hill captured twenty-five hundred Nationals, including
General J. Hays.
Yet the troops clung to the railway; and when, shortly afterward, the brigades of
Wilcox and
White, of
Burnside's corps, came up,
1 Hill hastily withdrew.
Then
Warren recovered the ground he had lost, re-established his lines, intrenched his position, and prepared for desperate attacks, for he was satisfied that the
Confederates would make every possible effort to repossess the road.
Warren's expectations were soon realized.
Three days later
he was suddenly assailed by a cross-fire of thirty guns, and then by two columns of infantry, one moving against his front, and the other making an effort to turn his flank.
He was so well prepared, that the force on his front was easily repulsed; and flanking the turning column, he broke
