The fighting 211While Lee struggled to maintain his
position outside Richmond, Grant
simultaneously renewed his pressure south
and west of Petersburg. General Warren
again commanded a mixed force vectored
toward that sensitive Confederate flank. His
target this time was the Boydton Plank Road,
west of Globe Tavern. Beyond that road ran a
truly significant target - the South Side
Railroad, Lee's last rail link into Petersburg.
Warren found early success, but Confederate
counter-measures directed by General
A. P. Hill yielded results by now familiar:
tactical victories for the Confederates against
dispirited Yankees; but strategic success for
Grant in the form of farther extension of his
lines to the west. On 30 September and
1 October, the troops fought fiercely on the
Peebles Farm and the Jones Farm. Hill's men
held Warren away from the Boydton Plank
Road, and far short of the South Side
Railroad, inflicting about 3,000 losses as
against 1,300 Confederate casualties. When
the smoke cleared, however, Unionist forts
and earthworks had begun to sprout in this
new sector.
In late October, the final major Federal
effort to westward in 1864 moved toward the
same target that had eluded Warren at
Peebles Farm. While the customary
diversionary demonstrations unfolded near
Richmond, a mighty force composed of
troops from three infantry corps, supported
by a strong cavalry detachment, would push
once again to the Boydton Plank Road and
then beyond toward the much-coveted
South Side Railroad.
On 27 October, General Hancock and his
II Corps succeeded in brushing aside
Confederate cavalry and reaching the
Boydton road, breaking across it near
Burgess' Mill on Hatcher's Run. In that
vicinity the victorious Yankees came up
against infantry and artillery in a good
position. Warren's Federal V Corps
floundered through tangled brush in a vain
attempt to help. Meanwhile, the customary
Confederate reinforcements pounded rapidly
down the roads from Petersburg. Late on the
27th, those new troops attacked Hancock's
men with vigor. Although they did not break
the Union line, the Southerners hammered it
so hard that Hancock retreated overnight
and left his wounded behind. Burgess' Mill
had cost him 1,800 casualties, the
Confederates 1,300.
As winter spread its grip across Virginia,
and major operations became impracticable,
Lee's line stretched far wider than the
Southern leader would have preferred. When
next the weather would allow Grant to move
farther west, Lee would have little chance of
resisting effectually. The armies retired into
watchful winter quiet in their heavily
entrenched lines. Desertion increased on
both sides. War-weary Confederates slipped
away steadily. Even the ever-more-powerful
Union armies suffered more than
7,300 desertions nationwide per month on
average during 1864.The Shenandoah Valley
Campaign of 1864In the spring of 1862, General Thomas J.
'Stonewall' Jackson catapulted to lasting fame
by waging a campaign in Virginia's fertile and
lovely Shenandoah valley that captured the
imagination of the South and transformed
the nature of the war. By turns careful and
then dazzling in his maneuvers, Jackson
utilized the valley's features to his own
advantage. The two forks of the Shenandoah
river served as moats, being crossed at only
three places in 100 miles (160km) by bridges.
The Massanutten Mountain massif ran down
the heart of the valley for 50 miles (80km) as
an immense bulwark and shield. The
northeastern end of the valley reached a
latitude north of Washington, and looked
like a shotgun pointed at the Northern
capital. A Unionist who fought in the region
described its military character: 'The
Shenandoah Valley is a queer place, and it
will not submit to the ordinary rules of
military tactics. Operations are carried on
here that Caesar or Napoleon never dreamed
of. Either army can surround the other, and I
believe that both can do it at the same time.'