Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Virginia, May–October 1864 349
some time on 14 June, the day before the attack. He and his men were to take part
in the assault and capture the Confederate works northeast of Petersburg. Three
regiments of dismounted cavalry—the 1st and 2d USCCs and the 5th Massachusetts
(Colored)—would augment the division’s two brigades, although some of the
regiments were absent at other posts along the river. With one battery—six guns—
of artillery for each brigade, the troops present numbered 3,747 officers and men.
They would act in concert with General Smith’s divisions, which were en route
to join them. “I do not want Petersburg visited, however,” Grant warned Butler,
“unless it is held, nor an attempt to take it unless you feel a reasonable degree of
confidence of success. I think troops should take nothing with them except what
they carry, depending upon supplies being sent after the place is secured.” 24
Any written instructions that Butler may have given Smith seem to have disappeared
from the official record. Hinks’ orders from Butler were merely to meet
Smith at a landing on the south bank of the Appomattox River “at 2 a.m. precisely.”
He would receive further orders then. None of the surviving reports of Smith, the
corps commander; of his divisional generals, Hinks and two others; or of six brigade
commanders, convey any idea of the purpose of the attack. All agree that
the troops awoke well before dawn, began moving south from the river, and then
turned west toward the Confederate defensive line around Petersburg. 25
Hinks met Smith and learned that his division was to follow the cavalry forward.
The men of the division were up an hour or two before dawn and waited under arms
until after sunrise for the twenty-five hundred troopers to pass them. Hinks was confident,
even cocky: if Butler would return all the detachments of his division, he had
written a few days earlier, “I will place Petersburg or my position [as divisional commander]
at your disposal.” When the cavalry came under fire from a Confederate battery
about 7:00 a.m., the dismounted skirmishers and horse holders continued to move
south, leaving a few men to keep an eye on the battery until Hinks’ infantry arrived. 26
The battery—observers disagreed as to the number of guns—fired from six
hundred yards away, beyond woods full of fallen trees, vines, and brush. Hinks
formed two lines: Colonel Duncan’s brigade took the lead with the 5th USCI on the
right and the 22d, 4th, and 6th USCIs to the left. Behind them came the 1st USCI
with half of the dismounted 5th Massachusetts Cavalry on its left. The dismounted
troopers caused some delay because the cavalry’s dismounted drill had no commands
for forming an infantry line of battle. Many of the troopers, besides, had
been in the army for less than three months. At last, the lines plunged into what
Colonel Duncan called “the blindness of the wood.” 27
First to emerge were three companies of the 4th USCI. The men set off with
a yell for the enemy position. While their officers tried to restore order and Confederate
artillerymen adjusted their guns to cover this new menace, the 5th Massachusetts
Cavalry in the rear began firing into the troops just ahead of them—the
24 OR, ser. 1, vol. 36, pt. 1, pp. 25–26, and pt. 3, p. 755 (quotation); vol. 40, pt. 1, pp. 236–37, 298,
720–21. Longacre, Army of Amateurs, pp. 141–45.
25 OR, ser. 1, vol. 40, pt. 1, pp. 705, 714–15, 717, 719–26, 728–30 (quotation, p. 720); vol. 51, pt.
1, pp. 265–69, 1252–65. Grimsley, And Keep Moving On, pp. 227–28.
26 OR, ser. 1, vol. 40, pt. 1, p. 721; vol. 51, pt. 1, pp. 263, 265. Butler Correspondence, 4: 361 (quotation).
27 OR, ser. 1, vol. 40, pt. 1, p. 721 (Hinks counted a total of six guns in two positions), 725
(Kautz, three guns); vol. 51, pt. 1, pp. 265 (Duncan, four guns), 266 (quotation).