William Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac

1 As the circumstances attending the non-capture of Petersburg are likely to give rise to much discussion, I shall here set forth with more particularity of detail such facts as concern the march of Hancock's column. The waiting for rations, which caused a delay of several hours during the morning of the 15th, cannot he regarded as having any important bearing on the question, seeing that General Hancock would not have waited had he known that Petersburg was to have been attacked. The column was put in motion at half-past 10 A. M., and the distance from Windmill Point, whence Hancock's corps started, is about twenty miles. Birney's division had the advance on the Prince George Courthouse road, while Barlow's division moved by the Old Courthouse road. The leading division was conducted on the former road by the chief of staff to General Hancock, who was furnished with a map on which the position to be reached behind Harrison's Creek was marked. But the map proved to be utterly worthless—the only roads laid down on it being widely out of the way. The staff-officer, however, bestirred himself to obtain information of the country from negro guides, and this being communicated to General Hancock, he judged that the speediest way to get to the position he was directed to occupy would be to turn the head of the column from the Prince George Courthouse road towards Old Courthouse, then by a cross-road get behind Harrison's Creek. Accordingly, Birney's and Gibbon's divisions were turned to the right, leaving the Prince George Courthouse road within six miles of Petersburg before three P. M. At half-past 5 P. M., as the column neared Old Courthouse, the dispatch from General Grant, directing the march to join Smith, was received. Fortunately, this came to hand just as the head of Birney's division was passing a country road leading directly towards Petersburg, and the column (Birney's and Gibbon's troops) was turned in that direction, arriving at Smith's position as the assault was over. No time had been lost on the march during the day, and the circumstance of Hancock's non-arrival at an earlier hour is due exclusively to the fact that he was not directed on Petersburg, and had no intimation, until between five and six P. M., that it was to be attacked. Had he been so informed, he could readily have joined Smith early in the afternoon, by marching directly towards Petersburg. The best hours of the day were spent in marching by an incorrect map, in search of a designated position which, as it was not in existence as described, could naturally not be found. With these facts, which are of official authenticity, it will not be difficult to judge who is responsible for the non-capture of Petersburg. As Lieutenant-General Grant states that he ‘threw forward the Army of the Potomac, by divisions, as rapidly as could be done’ (Report, p. 12), and as the manner in which he threw it forward is sufficiently manifest in the fact that neither General Meade nor General Hancock knew that Petersburg was to be attacked even, I leave the reconciliation of this discrepancy to those better equipped for the task.