Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

[356] it into wild confusion, and captured five hundred prisoners. The Confederate loss in this affair was full twelve hundred men. In his entire movement for the possession of the road, Warren lost in killed, wounded, and missing, four thousand four hundred and fifty men. He now rendered his position almost impregnable, and General Lee was compelled to see one of his most important lines of communication wrested from him.

On the day of Warren's victory,

August 21, 1864.

Hancock, who, as we have seen, had been called from the north bank of the James, and who had moved with a part of his corps rapidly toward the Weldon road, in the rear of Warren, struck that highway north of Reams's Station, and destroyed the track to that point and some miles south of it. He formed an intrenched camp at Reams's, and his cavalry kept up a vigilant scout in the direction of the Confederate army. These on the 25th reported the approach of foes, when to the divisions of Gibbon and Barlow (the latter then in command of General Miles) was assigned the duty of defending the intrenched position. The blow, given as usual by Hill, fell first on Miles, who promptly repelled the assailants. In a second attack they were again repulsed, with heavy loss. But Hill was determined to capture the works, and he ordered Heth's division to do so at all hazards. That commander then .concentrated a powerful artillery fire on the Nationals, and this was followed by a storming force, which, by desperate charges, succeeded in breaking Miles's line, and in capturing the batteries of McKnight, Perrin, and Sleeper. Hancock then ordered Gibbon to retake the works and guns; but his efforts to do so failed. Miles rallied a part of his broken column (Sixty-first New York), and by desperate fighting recovered some of the lost ground and McKnight's guns. At the same time Gibbon was assailed by some dismounted cavalry and driven, when the pursuit was checked by a flank fire. The Nationals retreated to a rear line, where the troops had been rallied, and when night fell Hancock withdrew from Reams's Station. He had lost in the fight twenty-four hundred of his eight thousand men, and five guns. Seventeen hundred of the men were made prisoners. Hill's loss was but little less, and he, too, withdrew from Reams's. But this disaster did not loosen Warren's hold upon the Weldon road, and the Confederates gained nothing by their victory.

For about a month after the battle of Reams's Station, there was comparative quiet along the lines of the opposing armies.¹ It was broken by General Grant, who, believing that only a few troops were then occupying the Confederate works on the north side of the James, ordered General Butler to cross over the river from Bermuda Hundred, with the Tenth and Eighteenth Corps (commanded respectively by Generals Birney and Ord), and Kautz's cavalry, and attempt, by a sudden and rapid movement, to capture Richmond before Lee could send troops to prevent it. If Lee should do so, and successfully resist the movement, his withdrawal of forces from the