Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Virginia, May–October 1864 377
rest of the day, too few to push on without support. Meanwhile, the other division of
the corps reached a point just south of the New Market Road, about four miles northwest
of the Confederate trenches captured that morning. From its new position, the
division was to attack Fort Gilmer, a Confederate bastion in the line of Richmond’s
outer defenses. It approached the fort from the north while Shaw’s brigade, led by
its divisional commander, General William Birney, moved against it from the east. 86
Birney held the untested 45th USCI and 29th Connecticut in reserve, in a
position from which they could watch part of the attack. “The Balles did whistle
aroun our heads dreadfulley,” Sgt. Joseph O. Cross of the 29th Connecticut told
his wife. “Wee all expected that it was our last time. . . . [W]ee had orders to drop
under abank in which w[e] did very freeley and glad to get off so wee Just set
their & look at the woonded men as they passed By.” The other three regiments
of the brigade, the 7th, 8th, and 9th USCIs, each sent four companies forward
to the attack at about 2:00 p.m. Under artillery and rifle fire, they crossed open
ground that Captain Brown of the 29th Connecticut gauged at half a mile in
width. The survivors plunged into a ditch at the base of the wall. Seeing what was
happening to the first four companies of the 8th USCI, the major commanding
the regiment refused to commit his remaining companies without a direct order;
Birney told him to stay where he was. Captain Brown, from his position in the
reserve, was able to see what happened to the attacking party of the 9th: “They
climb upon each others shoulders & some few off them thus enter the fort but the
rebs have been reinforced & they must not ever hope for success. . . . [W]e heard
[the Confederates] picking them off with their rifles till dark when all who were
not able to escape were taken.” The afternoon’s work cost the brigade 35 killed,
243 wounded, and 152 missing. 87
Reports from Birney’s subordinates agree that their attack began at about
2:00 p.m., while reports from the division that approached from the north indicate
two assaults on that side between about 1:35 and 3:00. Within three
weeks, Birney and Colonel Shaw began quarreling about which of them bore
responsibility for the failed assault. They maintained the dispute for the rest
of their lives. The lack of coordination in the afternoon attacks on Fort Gilmer
was similar to General Paine’s sequential assaults on the Confederate trenches
earlier in the day. Such ineptitude was not limited to the leaders of black
troops: one of the XVIII Corps generals, along with his division, got lost as
well that morning in some woods between the James River bridgehead and
the division’s objective. A greater proportion of men with no military background—and
without much aptitude for conducting operations—seems to have
risen to higher rank in General Butler’s Army of the James than in most other
Union field armies. Even if more troops had been available to Butler’s generals
on 29 September, there was little chance that they would have moved quickly
86 OR, ser. 1, vol. 42, pt. 1, p. 708; Sommers, Richmond Redeemed, pp. 93–94.
87 OR, ser. 1, vol. 42, pt. 1, pp. 134, 772–75, 780–81, and pt. 3, p. 253–54; Kelly Nolin, ed.,
“The Civil War Letters of J. O. Cross,” Connecticut Historical Society Bulletin 60 (1995): 211–35
(quotation, p. 220); Brown to Dear Friends at Home, 5 Oct 1864; Sommers, Richmond Redeemed,
pp. 83–93.