Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

[657] rebel troops more than ten days, busy defending Richmond, so that they might not join Lee's army. I had also cut the Weldon Railroad two successive times by my cavalry. I had cut the Petersburg Railroad and prevented the sending forward of troops and supplies, and I had cut in many places the Danville Railroad, the other supply road of Lee. This statement needs no corroboration now, but if it did, the despatches of Beauregard to the rebel war authorities would be sufficient. They would show the danger to which I was exposed, as the Confederates believed, if they should get between me and my intrenched camp,--a danger wholly frustrated by the conclusion to which I came. They also bear witness to the enhanced value and the great importance to our forces of the strategic movement, admittedly devised by myself, of seizing and holding City Point and Bermuda Hundred.

To determine advisedly any course of action at once save the one directed to Gillmore, it was necessary to wait until the very thick fog, which had enveloped everything, could be cleared away by the sun. When that had been done, I learned that the Confederates had massed by far the largest portion of their troops in the breastworks opposite my right flank, which was held by the Eighteenth Corps, with the intention of turning it and then seizing the shortest and best road to my intrenchments, the river road, getting their forces there by a break through the weak line I had left, and seizing Bermuda Hundred with all its advantages, thus accomplishing results of the greatest moment.¹

During the day before the battle of Drury's Bluff, May 16, the line covering Smith's corps had been intrenched. The line of Gillmore's corps was defended by the outer line of the enemy's intrenchments which we had taken and were using substantially in reverse.

Breast-high intrenchments had been made in front of the line held by the Eighteenth Corps, and in a substantially clear field almost within cannon shot of the intrenchments of the enemy. These works had been extended as far as the line could be covered, leaving only a short space, say a quarter of a mile, between the James River and the right of the line, which was held by the cavalry pickets only.