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

[360] a position, about three miles westward of the Weldon road, at a cost of about twenty-five hundred men. In one of these encounters, the Confederate General Dunnovan was killed.

Now, again, there was a pause, but not a settled rest,¹ for Grant had determined not to put his troops into winter quarters until another effort should be made to turn the flanks of the Confederate army, capture or disperse it, and seize Petersburg and Richmond. He proceeded to find the right of Lee's line, for the purpose of turning it and seizing upon the Southside railroad, now become the principal channel of supplies for the Confederate troops.² The expedition for the purpose was composed of the Second, Fifth, and Ninth Corps of the Army of the Potomac. Of these, a sufficient number of men was left to hold the Union intrenchments in front of Petersburg. At the same time General Butler was to make a demonstration in force against Lee's left, on the north side of the river, with the Army of the James.

A few miles west of the Weldon road was the Boydton plank road, which was now Lee's chief channel of communication in that quarter; and for its protection he had extended his entrenchments some distance along its line, in the vicinity of its passage of a stream called Hatcher's Run. These works also constituted defenses for the Southside railroad, which there ran parallel with the plank road. The task of attacking the extreme right of that intrenched line was assigned to the Ninth (Parke's) Corps, supported by the Fifth (Warren's) Corps, while the Second (Hancock's), accompanied by Gregg's cavalry division well to its left, should swing round to the west side of Hatcher's Run, sweep across the Boydton road, and seize the Southside railway.

These movements began before daybreak on the morning of the 27th of October.

1864.

The Ninth and Fifth Corps, the former on the right and the latter on the left, struck the right of the Confederate line at nine o'clock in the morning. Parke failed to break the line, and was repulsed; whereupon Warren, according to arrangement, proceeded to cross Hatcher's Run in an attempt to turn the Confederate flank and gain its rear. In the mean time, Hancock, who was passing round further to the left, had gained the Boydton road near Burgess's mill, without much opposition, and with Gregg's cavalry was about to push on and strike the Southside road, when he was halted by an order from General Meade, who informed him that a division of Warren's corps was making its way to the west of Hatcher's Run, with instructions to form a connection with the Second Corps, and open the way for the rest of the troops in that direction.

Warren had attempted his turning movement by sending Crawford's division, supported by one of Ayres's brigades, across Hatcher's Run, at Armstrong's mill, with instructions to move up that stream in the direction of the Boydton road. Crawford soon found himself in an almost impenetrable swamp, in which his forces were broken and confused. In the course