Battle of Fort Stedman
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Template:Battlebox The Battle of Fort Stedman was fought on March 25, 1865, during the final days of the American Civil War. The Union Army fortification in the siege lines around Petersburg, Virginia, was attacked in a pre-dawn Confederate assault by troops led by Major General John B. Gordon. The attack was the last serious attempt by Confederate troops to break the Siege of Petersburg.
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Prelude
In March, 1865, General Robert E. Lee had to face several Union victories in the Shenandoah Valley and in the Carolinas. These victories allowed the Union to strengthen their positions around Petersburg and to threaten Lee's lines of supply. In this risky situation Lee ordered General John B. Gordon to formulate a plan that would allow the Confederate Army to pull out of Petersburg and perhaps give it the opportunity to link up with the Confederate army in North Carolina under General Joseph E. Johnston.
Confederate attack
Gordon's idea was a surprise attack on the Union lines to force Ulysses S. Grant to shorten his lines or even set his lines back. He hoped that the breakthrough would lead to the main Union supply base of City Point, ten miles northeast. In detail, Gordon planned a pre-dawn assault on Fort Stedman, one of the fortifications marking the Union lines that encircled Petersburg. It was one of the closest spots on the line, there were fewer wooden chevaux de frise obstructions, and a supply depot on the U.S. Military Railroad was less than a mile behind it. Directly after capturing the fort, Confederate soldiers would move north and south along the Union lines to clear the neighboring fortifications to make way for the main attack. The assault force was Gordon's Second Corps of 7,500 men, backed by Robert Ransom's North Carolina brigade and William Wallace's South Carolina brigade, in all about 10,000 men, with 5,000 in reserve.
The attack started at 4:00 a.m. On a signal, lead parties of sharpshooters and engineers who masqueraded as deserting soldiers headed out to overwhelm Union pickets and to remove wooden defenses that would have obstructed the infantry advance. It was a complete surprise as they captured Fort Stedman and the batteries (designated Batteries X and XI) just to the north and south of it. Forces under sector commander Brig. Gen. Napolean McLaughlen, many of them heavy artillery troops serving as infantry, used canister fire against the attackers, but were unable to organize an effective defense. They attempted to fire mortars from Battery XII onto Stedman, but to no avail. McLaughlen arrived at Stedman without knowing it had changed hands and was forced to surrender his sword to Gordon. The Confederates captured nearly 1,000 prisoners.
Gordon's next objective was to widen his breakthrough by capturing Fort McGilvery to the north, and Fort Haskell to the south of Stedman. The lead attackers reached Harrison's Creek along the Prince George Court House Road, but were unable to widen their breakthrough past the neighboring forts. (Unfortunately for the defenders of Haskell, Union batteries in other forts assumed it had fallen and shelled it with friendly fire.) Reserve forces waited for the word to launch the main attack in the direction of City Point.
Union counterattack
But the Union was not willing to retreat. Union General John Hartranft, commander of the IX Corps Reserve Division (a unit made up of six newly recruited Pennsylvania regiments), gathered his troops for a counterattack. With artillery support from up and down the Union line, General Hartranft managed to stop the Confederate attack. Gordon, who was in Fort Stedman, realized the plan had failed when his lead men started returning and reported remarkable Union resistance. By 7:30 a.m. Union forces had sealed the breach and their artillery was heavily bombarding the fort. A coordinated attack started before 8.00 a.m. and Hartranft managed to retake the fort and restored the initial Union line. The retreating Confederates came under Union crossfire, suffering heavy casualties. Their attack had failed.
Aftermath
The attack on Fort Stedman turned out to be a four-hour action with no impact on the Union lines. In fact the Confederate Army was forced to set back its own lines, as the Union attacked further down the front line. To give Gordon's attack enough strength to be successful, Lee had weakened his own left flank. There, near Fort Fisher, the Union counterattack prepared the ground for one of General Grant's breakthrough attacks on April 2, 1865.
Lee's army suffered heavy casualties during the battle of Fort Stedman—about 2,900, including 1,000 captured in the Union counterattack. But more seriously, the Confederate positions were weakened. After the battle, Lee's defeat was only a matter of time. His final opportunity to break the Union lines and regain the momentum was gone. The Battle of Fort Stedman was the final episode of the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign. Immediately following was the Appomattox Campaign, including the Battle of Five Forks and the final surrender of Lee's army on April 9, 1865.
References
- Website of the Petersburg National Battlefield (http://www.nps.gov/pete/mahan/PNBhome.html)
- McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States), Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-195-03863-0