Overland Campaign

Ulysses S. Grant had been promoted to lieutenant general on March 9.

Three days later, President Abraham Lincoln appoints him General-in-Chief of the Armies of the United States.

In the spring of 1864, Grant sets in motion a grand strategy designed to press the Confederacy into submission.

"My primary mission," reasoned Grant, "is to ... bring pressure to bear on the Confederacy so no longer could it take advantage of interior lines."

Grant devises a strategy of multiple, simultaneous offensives against the Confederacy, hoping to prevent any of the rebel armies from reinforcing the others over interior lines.

The two most significant of these are to be led by Major General George G. Meade's Army of the Potomac, accompanied by Grant himself, which is to attack Robert E. Lee's army directly and advance toward the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia; and Major General William T. Sherman, replacing Grant in his role as commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi, who is to advance from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Atlanta.

Grant takes personal command of the Army of the Potomac in the east and soon formulates a strategy of attrition based upon the Union's overwhelming superiority in numbers and supplies.

The Overland Campaign is Grant's 1864 offensive against Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.

With 101,895 soldiers, Grant begins a systematic drive in Virginia with 61,025 troops, fighting in the decisive Battle of the Wilderness on May 5-6.

2,246 of Grant's troops are killed, and 12,073 are wounded, totaling 14,319 casualties.

Exact loses on the Confederate side are uncertain, but casualties total 7,750 troops.

Despite heavy losses, Grant proceeds against Lee on May 8, vainly attempting to dislodge him at the Spotsylvania Court House, eleven miles from Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Union cavalry commander Major General Philip Sheridan has been dissatisfied with his role in the campaign up to this point.

His Cavalry Corps has been assigned to the Army of the Potomac, under Major General George G. Meade, who reports to Grant.

Meade has employed Sheridan's forces primarily in the traditional role of screening and reconnaissance, whereas Sheridan sees the value of wielding the Cavalry Corps as an independently operating offensive weapon for wide ranging raids into the rear areas of the enemy.

On May 8, 1864, Sheridan had gone over Meade's head and told Grant that if his Cavalry Corps were let loose to operate as an independent unit, he could defeat "Jeb" Stuart, long a nemesis to the Union army.

Grant, intrigued, persuades Meade of the value of Sheridan's request.

The corps commanded by Major General John Sedgwick is probing skirmish lines ahead of the left flank of Confederate defenses on May 9, and he is directing artillery placements.

Confederate sharpshooters are about one thousand yards (nine hundred meters) away and their shots cause members of his staff and artillerymen to duck for cover.

Sedgwick strides around in the open and is quoted as saying, "What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance."

Although ashamed, his men continue to flinch and he repeats, "I'm ashamed of you, dodging that way. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance."

Just seconds later, he falls forward with a bullet hole below his left eye. (Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative. vol. 3, Red River to Appomattox. New York: Random House, 1974. p. 203) Sedgwick is the highest ranking Union casualty in the Civil War.

Although James B. McPherson will be n command of an army at the time of his death and Sedgwick of a corps, Sedgwick had the most senior rank by date of all major generals killed.

Upon hearing of his death, Grant, flabbergasted by the news, repeatedly asks, "Is he really dead?" (Rhea, Gordon C. The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7–12, 1864. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997. p. 95) Sedgwick's reputation had been that of a solid, dependable, but relatively unaggressive general.

He is well liked by his soldiers, who had referred to him affectionately as "Uncle John".

His death is met by universal sorrow; even Robert E. Lee expresses his sadness over the fate of an old friend.

George G. Meade weeps at the news.

Grant characterizes Sedgwick as one who "was never at fault when serious work was to be done" and he tells his staff that the loss for him is worse than that of an entire division.

Sheridan’s victory over a numerically inferior opponent has succeeded in killing Stuart and thus deprived Lee of his most experienced cavalry commander, but this comes at the expense of a two-week period in which the Army of the Potomac will have no direct cavalry coverage for screening or reconnaissance.

The most powerful cavalry force ever seen in the Eastern Theater—over ten thousand troopers with thirty-two artillery pieces—had ridden to the southeast on May 9 to move behind Lee's arm.

They have three goals: first, disrupt Lee's supply lines by destroying railroad tracks and supplies; second, threaten the Confederate capital in Richmond, which would distract Lee; third, and most important, defeat Stuart.

The Union cavalry column, which at times stretches for over thirteen miles (twenty-one kilometers), had reached the Confederate forward supply base at Beaver Dam Station that evening.

The Confederate troops had been able to destroy many of the critical military supplies before the Union arrived, so Sheridan's men destroy numerous railroad cars and six locomotives of the Virginia Central Railroad, destroy telegraph wires, and rescue almost four hundred Union soldiers who had been captured in the Wilderness.

Stuart has moved his forty-five hundred troopers to get between Sheridan and Richmond.

The two forces meet at noon on May 11 at Yellow Tavern, an abandoned inn located six miles (ten kilometers) north of Richmond.

Not only does the Union outnumber the Confederates by three divisions to two brigades, it has superior firepower—all are armed with rapid-firing Spencer carbines.

The Confederate troopers tenaciously resist from the low ridgeline bordering the road to Richmond, fighting for over three hours.

A counter-charge by the 1st Virginia Cavalry pushes the advancing Union troopers back from the hilltop as Stuart, mounted on horseback, shouts encouragement.

As the 5th Michigan Cavalry streams in retreat past Stuart, a dismounted Union private, forty-eight-year-old John A. Huff, a former sharpshooter, turns and shoots Stuart with his .44-caliber pistol, from a distance of ten to thirty yards.

The fighting keeps up for an hour after Stuart is wounded, Major General Fitzhugh Lee taking temporary command.

Stuart will die in Richmond the following day.

Grant, after five days of trench warfare at Spotsylvania Court House—the "Bloody Angle"—and some twelve thousand casualties, informs General Henry Halleck: “I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer.”

Grant fights another bloody battle at Cold Harbor, ten miles from Richmond, on June 3, losing twelve thousand men in one day.

Grant's losses for the past thirty days amount to sixty thousand men by June 12, as against twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand Confederate casualties.