Fort Harrison, looking soutwest from outside the northeast corner of the fort, photograph by author
During the summer of 1864, Union General U. S. Grant made several attempts to break Lee’s lines by attacking both sides of the James River, hoping to stretch the Confederates to the breaking point. In July, he sent troops to the north bank of the James and attacked (First Deep Bottom). That effort failed, as did the disastrous attack at Petersburg that today is known as the Battle of the Crater. In August, he tried a similar strategy, attacking across the James (Second Deep Bottom) and in Petersburg. Again, no advantage was gained.
By early September Grant was thinking of sending troops south to Cape Fear to close the port there, but the commander of the Army of the James, General Benjamin Butler, had another idea. With the information gained from spies like Elizabeth Van Lew, he believed there were only about 3,000 Confederate troops north of the James, and many of those were “home guard,” government clerks, invalids or men too old for the draft. The estimate was off… there were actually about 8,000 total troops, but only half of those were veterans. Butler proposed to Grant that he would send his 10th and 18th corps from his Army of the James north of the river, make a surprise attack, and capture Richmond. While no fan of Butler, the commanding general figured there was nothing to lose. Butler’s plan might work, and it would at least pull troops away from Meade, who was commanding the Army of the Potomac in front of Petersburg. Perhaps the final breakthrough could be made. Butler was told to draft his plans, but he must attack in late September. It was an election year and victories were needed quickly to secure Lincoln’s re-election. Continue reading
Bill Bryson did for the Appalachian Trail what Tony Horowitz did for the Civil War. In his 1998 book A Walk in the Woods, Bryson recounted his adventures hiking portions of the AT with his woefully under-prepared friend Stephen Katz, sharing stories about the people he met and the things he learned along the way, employing the kind of immersive journalistic approach Horwitz used in Confederates in the Attic.
