This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[645]
his subsequent acts toward me, censuring either my military or political conduct.
On the 7th General Smith struck the railroad near Port Walthall Junction, and began its destruction.
Generals Brooks and Heckman of his corps had severe fighting, with some loss, but with more damage to the enemy.
Colonel West, of the colored cavalry, had most successfully performed his march, having driven the enemy from the fords of the Chickahominy after a lively skirmish, and crossing and joining us opposite City Point, as ordered.
During the day of the 8th no movement was made, but the troops were given rest, dispositions being made to move our whole force to the railroad and destroy as much of it as possible.
General Smith was to endeavor to reach the railroad bridge over Swift Creek, supported by General Gillmore on the left toward Chester Station.
It was found quite impossible to discover any ford to cross the creek, and the railroad bridge was strongly held by the enemy with intrenched artillery.
General Gillmore's command destroyed a large portion of the road, and in the afternoon the troops were got in position to force the enemy back on the next day. That evening I had a consultation with my corps commanders, and it was determined that we should make a vigorous movement on the morrow to pass Swift creek, to reach the Appomattox, and destroy the bridges across it. Cooperating with this, General Hincks was to move on the south side of the Appomattox upon Petersburg itself, and at least create a diversion, if he did not carry the city, while the enemy were defending the line of the creek.
Orders were prepared and sent to General Hincks for that purpose.
At the close of the consultation he was advised by a despatch that it was thought best he should not advance beyond his picket-line before 7 A. M., so as to give an opportunity for all the rebel forces to be drawn to the front of General Smith, from whom Hincks should have word before engaging the enemy.1
Upon my return to my headquarters that evening I found several despatches from the Secretary of War, giving information of the movements of General Grant.
The first stated that on Friday night Lee's army was in “full retreat” for Richmond, Grant pursuing; that Hancock had passed
1 See Appendix No. 34.
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.