The Great Battle Never Fought: The Mine Run Campaign, November 26 – December 2, 1863
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After his stunning victory at Gettysburg in July of 1863, the Union commander spent the following months trying to bring the Army of Northern Virginia to battle once more and finish the job. The Confederate army, robbed of much of its offensive strength, nevertheless parried Meade’s moves time after time. Although the armies remained in constant contact during those long months of cavalry clashes, quick maneuvers, and sudden skirmishes, Lee continued to frustrate Meade’s efforts.
Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., Meade’s political enemies launched an all-out assault against his reputation and generalship. Even the very credibility of his victory at Gettysburg came under assault. Pressure mounted for the army commander to score a decisive victory and prove himself once more.
Smaller victories, like those at Bristoe Station and Rappahannock Station, did little to quell the growing clamor—particularly because out west, in Chattanooga, another Union general, Ulysses S. Grant, was once again reversing Federal misfortunes. Meade needed a comparable victory in the east.
And so, on Thanksgiving Day, 1863, the Army of the Potomac rumbled into motion once more, intent on trying again to bring about the great battle that would end the war.
The Great Battle Never Fought: The Mine Run Campaign, November 26-December 2 1863 recounts the final chapter of the forgotten fall of 1863—when George Gordon Meade made one final attempt to save the Union and, in doing so, save himself.
Chris Mackowski
Chris Mackowski, Ph.D., is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Emerging Civil War as well as the managing editor of the Emerging Civil War Series published by Savas Beatie. Chris is a writing professor in the Jandoli School of Communication at St. Bonaventure University, where he also serves as the associate dean for undergraduate programs, and is the historian-in-residence at Stevenson Ridge, a historic property on the Spotsylvania Court House battlefield.
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The Great Battle Never Fought - Chris Mackowski
The Great Battle Never Fought
T
HE
M
INE
R
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C
AMPAIGN
, N
OVEMBER
26-D
ECEMBER
2, 1863
by Chris Mackowski
Chris Mackowski, series editor
Chris Kolakowski, chief historian
The Emerging Civil War Series
offers compelling, easy-to-read overviews of some of the Civil War’s most important battles and stories.
Recipient of the Army Historical Foundation’s Lieutenant General Richard G. Trefry Award for contributions to the literature on the history of the U.S. Army
Also part of the Emerging Civil War Series:
Bushwhacking on a Grand Scale: The Battle of Chickamauga, Sept. 18-20, 1863
by William Lee White
Fight Like the Devil: The First Day at Gettysburg, July 1, 1863
by Chris Mackowski, Kristopher D. White, and Daniel T. Davis
Grant’s Last Battle: The Story Behind the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
by Chris Mackowski
Hell Itself: The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864
by Chris Mackowski
The Last Days of Stonewall Jackson: The Mortal Wounding of the Confederacy’s Greatest Icon
by Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White
Out Flew the Sabres: The Battle of Brandy Station, June 9, 1863
by Eric J. Wittenberg and Daniel T. Davis
A Season of Slaughter: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, May 8-21, 1864
by Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White
Simply Murder: The Battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862
by Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White
Strike Them a Blow: Battle Along the North Anna River, May 21-25, 1863
by Chris Mackowski
That Furious Struggle: Chancellorsville and the High Tide of the Confederacy, May 1-5, 1863
by Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White
A Want of Vigilance: The Bristoe Station Campaign, October 9-19, 1863
by Bill Backus and Rob Orrison
For a complete list of titles in the Emerging Civil War Series, visit www.emergingcivilwar.com.
Also by Chris Mackowski:
Chancellorsville’s Forgotten Front: The Battles of Second Fredericksburg and Salem Church, co-authored with Kristopher D. White (Savas Beatie, 2013)
Seizing Destiny: The Army of the Potomac’s Valley Forge
and the Civil War Winter that Saved the Union, co-authored with Albert Z. Conner, Jr. (Savas Beatie, 2016)
The Great Battle Never Fought
T
HE
M
INE
R
UN
C
AMPAIGN
, N
OVEMBER
26-D
ECEMBER
2, 1863
by Chris Mackowski
© 2018 by Chris Mackowski
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.
First edition, first printing
ISBN-13 (paperback): 978-1-61121-407-9
ISBN-13 (ebook): 978-1-61121-408-6
ISBN-13 (Mobi): 978-1-61121-408-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mackowski, Chris, editor.
Title: The Great Battle Never Fought : The Mine Run Campaign, Nov. 26-Dec. 2, 1863 / By Chris Mackowski.
Description: First edition. | El Dorado Hills, California : Savas Beatie, [2018] | Series: Emerging Civil War series
Identifiers: LCCN 2018041438| ISBN 9781611214079 (pbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781611214086 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Mine Run Campaign, Va., 1863.
Classification: LCC E475.78 .M33 2018 | DDC 973.7/35--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018041438
Published by
Savas Beatie LLC
989 Governor Drive, Suite 102
El Dorado Hills, California 95762
Phone: 916-941-6896
Email: sales@savasbeatie.com
Web: www.savasbeatie.com
Savas Beatie titles are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more details, please contact Special Sales, P.O. Box 4527, El Dorado Hills, CA 95762, or you may e-mail us at sales@savasbeatie.com, or visit our website at www.savasbeatie.com for additional information.
for Maxwell James Mackowski
Table of Contents
A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
P
ROLOGUE
C
HAPTER
O
NE
: The Deep Game
C
HAPTER
T
WO
: Rappahannock Station and Kelly’s Ford
C
HAPTER
T
HREE
: Thanksgiving Day
C
HAPTER
F
OUR
: Into the Wilderness
C
HAPTER
F
IVE
: Robinson’s Tavern
C
HAPTER
S
IX
: New Hope Church
C
HAPTER
S
EVEN
: The Road to Payne’s Farm
C
HAPTER
E
IGHT
: The Battle of Payne’s Farm—Part I
C
HAPTER
N
INE
: The Battle of Payne’s Farm—Part II
C
HAPTER
T
EN
: Along Mine Run
C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN
: Warren’s March
C
HAPTER
T
WELVE
: Expecting a Carnival of Death
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN
: The Moral Courage of George Gordon Meade
C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN
: Lee’s Lost Opportunity
E
PILOGUE
A
FTERWORD
by Theodore P Savas
T
OURING
M
INE
R
UN
A
PPENDIX
A: Rest, Soldier, Rest by Mike Block
A
PPENDIX
B: I Suppose the Result Will Be a Pretty General Sweeping Out
: The Army of the Potomac’s Reorganization by Ryan T. Quint
O
RDER OF
B
ATTLE
S
UGGESTED
R
EADING
A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR
Footnotes for this volume are available at http://emergingcivilwar.com/publications/the-emerging-civil-war-series/footnotes
✽ ✽ ✽
List of Maps
Maps by Hal Jesperson
M
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HEATER
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OUTES OF
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ARCH TO THE
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ATTLEFIELD
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OVEMBER
B
ATTLE OF
P
AYNE’S
F
ARM
—I
NITIAL
P
HASE
B
ATTLE OF
P
AYNE’S
F
ARM
—S
ECOND
P
HASE
P
OSITIONS
A
LONG
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OVEMBER
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ARREN’S
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OSITION
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IVIL
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ATTLE
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ARM
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ALKING
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RAIL
Map by Steven Stanley, Courtesy American Battlefield Trust
A
UTHOR’S
N
OTE
Much more remains to be written about Mine Run, particularly since so little has been written about it up to this point. This account is, I admit, Union-centric. That’s because I have always seen Mine Run as a story about George Gordon Meade, who had much at stake in this campaign. He also called the shots, although Lee improvised well in reaction. Union Pvt. Warren Lee Goss later said, The campaign of Mine Run was celebrated for the fighting which did not take place, and for its failures.
On the contrary, I see it as one of Meade’s great successes.
Acknowledgments
If this book has a spiritual godfather, it’s Greg Mertz, who first introduced me to Mine Run. He took me around the battlefield at a time when there wasn’t much to explore beyond Payne’s Farm, which was just then being preserved by the then-Civil War Preservation Trust (now the American Battlefield Trust). The idea that an entire battlefield could be somehow entirely forgotten about was new to me—and fascinating. Greg really kindled and encouraged that interest.
If this book has an intellectual midwife, it’s Eric Mink, who has for years let me bounce ideas and discoveries off him, usually over beers. He’s shared many cool discoveries of his own in return. He’s been an invaluable sounding board, and our conversations have allowed me to better develop my own understanding of the campaign.
Earthworks still criss-cross through the forests around Mine Run. Although most of the battlefield is not formally protected, much of it remains in excellent condition.(cm)
If this book has a crazy uncle, it’s Ron Veen, who lives along Mine Run. Ron shared his insider’s knowledge of the battlefield with me in a way that only a guy from the neighborhood can. Much of what remains of the Mine Run battlefield—and there’s a lot—is on private property, but Ron opened doors that allowed us to do some bushwhacking in some really cool places. I have a much more intimate knowledge of the ground itself thanks to Ron.
Hal Jespersen has been working on my maps on and off (my fault) for nearly two years. As Ron helped me better understand the layout of the earthworks on the field, Hal was able to incorporate that research into the maps, making these the most accurate available on the campaign.
Steve Stanley and Garry Adelman of the American Battlefield Trust graciously allowed me to use the Trust’s Payne’s Farm Walking Trail map, which they updated specifically for this volume.
Ted Savas, who uncovered the precise location of Payne’s Farm (and who shares that story in his Afterword), has offered not just his usual enthusiasm as a publisher but also as a Mine Run fanboy. That’s made it extra fun. My thanks to him as well as his staff at Savas Beatie, especially Sarah Keeney, Donna Endacott, and Mary Gutzke for their work in support of the Emerging Civil War Series.
Thanks to Mike Block and Ryan Quint for their appendices, which helped show a fuller picture of the aftermath of Mine Run for the Army of the Potomac.
Most motorists along Virginia State Route 20 pass over Mine Run with nary an inkling that they’re passing through the site of the great battle that never happened.
(cm)
P
HOTO
C
REDITS
: Harper’s Weekly (hw); Thomas Francis Galwey, The Valiant Hours (tg); Warren Lee Goss, Recollections of a Private (wg); Library of Congress (loc); Library of Congress/Virginia Historical Society (loc/vhs); Chris Mackowski (cm); National Archives and Records Administration (nara); National Cemetery Administration (nca); National Park Service (nps); Orange County Historical Society (ochs); Theodore P. Savas (ts); Austin C. Sterns, Three Years with Company K (as); Virginia Military Institute Archives Digital Collection (vmi)
Christine Wirth, the archives specialist at Longfellow House—Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site, got me a copy of the watercolor painting of New Hope Church that appears in Chapter Six. My thanks to her and the park for allowing me to reproduce the image.
Thanks to ECW’s Chris Kolakowski, Rob Orrison, and Kris White for reviewing the manuscript. Thanks to Greg and Eric for looking at it, too. And another thanks to Rob for spending an afternoon showing me around the Rappahannock Station battlefield so I could get some pictures. He also helped me find my way around Centreville.
Also: My oldest son, Jackson, provided essential research assistance and transcription. Jean McGann patiently helped me navigate the files at the Orange County Historical Society. Jake Struhelka and I spent many hours discussing the idea of moral courage
and its application to George Meade, in particular.
Finally, I’d like to thank my children, Stephanie, Jackson, and Maxwell, and my wife, Jennifer, for all their love and support as I’ve brought this project to life.
For the Emerging Civil War Series
Theodore P. Savas, publisher
Chris Mackowski, series editor
Christopher Kolakowski, chief historian
Sarah Keeney, editorial consultant
Kristopher D. White, co-founding editor
Maps by Hal Jespersen
Design and layout by Chris Mackowski
The charge was not made, the battle was not fought, and Mine Run, as a great battle, has no place in history.
— Alfred S. Roe
The wounding of Dan Sickles is commemorated by a bas-relief sculpture on the New York monument in Gettysburg’s national cemetery. Sickles’s wounding—minor in the grand scheme of the war—would have major implications for Army of the Potomac commander George Gordon Meade. (cm)
Prologue
Dan Sickles felt triumphant.
Three and a half months earlier, on July 2 at the battle of Gettysburg, the former III Corps commander had the lower part of his right leg blown off by an artillery shell. He’d spent the intervening time in Washington, D.C., recuperating and telling anyone who’d listen—including President Lincoln—about how he had managed to save the Army of the Potomac from certain disaster during the battle. In doing so, he implied mismanagement by the commanding general, George Gordon Meade. Meade’s eventual victory came about, in Sickles’s slanted tale, because of Sickles’s own bold actions.
Sickles’s whisperings had triggered Congressional investigations and newspaper editorials. The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War held hearings. Sickles’s favorite hometown newspaper, the New York Herald, waved his banner. "I see the Herald is constantly harping on the assertion that Gettysburg was fought by the corps commanders and the common soldiers, and that no generalship was displayed, Meade himself lamented.
I suppose after a while it will be discovered I was not at Gettysburg at all."
Now, in mid-October, Meade and his Army of the Potomac found itself in apparent trouble again, cornered inside strong defenses in Centreville, Virginia, just outside Washington, driven there by a wily and unrelenting Robert E. Lee and his Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. On October 14, 1863, after Lee had dogged Meade for the better part of a week, Meade managed to bloody Lee’s nose in a fight at Bristoe Station just before the Federals finally slipped into the safety of their stronghold.
With the Army of the Potomac so close to the capital, Sickles could not resist the opportunity to ride to its rescue. Led by his ardor, he came to ask to resume his command, thinking that a battle was imminent,
one of his former subordinates, Regis de Trobriand, later said.
Sickles had amassed enough personal baggage to load his own army wagon train. He’d once murdered the husband of his lover and then got off on a temporary insanity
defense—the first-ever instance in American jurisprudence. A no-holds-barred politician who delighted in his roguish reputation, Sickles schmoozed friends and alienated enemies everywhere he went. As an influential War Democrat
connected to New York’s powerful Tammany Hall machine, even Lincoln treated Sickles with kid gloves. Subsequent biographers have characterized him as everything ranging from Sickles the Incredible
to American Scoundrel.
Contemporaries called him Devil Dan.
As a soldier, George Gordon Meade was a consummate professional, but he had a temper, said one aide, that cuts people up without mercy.
The aide referred to Meade as the Great Peppery.
(loc)
Maj. Gen. Dan Sickles wasn’t West Point trained and so, in Meade’s eyes, didn’t belong to the true army brotherhood. Although not schooled in military arts, Sickles was well schooled in politics—which Meade would come to rue. (loc)
Sickles arrived at Fairfax Station on October 16, two days after the fight at Bristoe and just four days shy of his 44th birthday. He does not look his antecedents,
one observer admired, noting Sickles’s brisk gray eye, and a good tempered, dashing air.
Sickles was, no doubt, expecting his old III Corps as a birthday gift.
The reception offered him by his former men, nearly 19,000 of them at that point, reflected his earlier jubilance. [A]ll his Gettysburg regiments formed without arms, in double line, along the road he must take,
de Trobriand recalled. John Haley of the 17th Maine, among the throng, glowed: As he passed along our lines, he was greeted with such rounds of applause as to convince any man of his unbounded popularity. The best of it was it was genuine, for if ever a general was idolized, it is Sickles.
Former division commander Maj. Gen. David Bell Birney, a Sickles crony, came out to meet the maimed hero, with a wagon drawn by four horses,
de Trobriand said. Their appearance was the signal for a thunder of acclamations, such as I have seldom heard. … [E]xplosions of hurrahs burst forth. … Caps were thrown into the air; and the welcome was most enthusiastic.
Sickles’s meeting with Meade, however, went much differently. I reported for duty, wishing … to resume the command of my corps for the coming battle …
Sickles testified in a later Congressional hearing. I had a conviction that my presence with my corps would perhaps be of some advantage to the service, as it would certainly be most gratifying to my own feelings … notwithstanding my apparent disability.
Meade disliked Sickles intensely, considering him the worst kind of showboating, intriguing politician—the kind who’d risen to command through connections, not merit. Any military aptitude Sickles had shown—and there had been some prior to Gettysburg—he blew when he advanced on the Peach Orchard against Meade’s orders on July 2. Even then, Meade dealt with the insubordination lightly in his official report of the battle, suggesting that Sickles, not fully apprehending the instructions in regard to the position to be occupied,
merely misunderstood his orders. Privately, however, Meade said that if Sickles hadn’t lost a leg at Gettysburg, he would’ve been court-martialed for disobedience.
Imagine the moment at army headquarters, pregnant with all that remained unsaid: Sickles, with hat in hand and gall in his throat, asking for a favor from a man he hated … Meade, with military matters urgently weighing on his mind, dreading the thought of this snake back with the army … neither man respecting the other … both men hoping the interview would end before its veneer of forced cordiality cracked.
Harvard-educated Theodore Lyman joined Meade’s staff as a volunteer aide and became one of the army’s most important chroniclers. Lyman first met Meade while on a scientific expedition in the Florida Keys in 1856, where Meade, a captain, worked as an engineer overseeing lighthouse construction. (nps)
Always polite to Sickles despite his distaste for him, Meade declined the offer, citing Sickles’s frail condition. He instanced the case of [Maj. Gen. Richard] Ewell, of the rebel army,
Sickles later reported: Ewell had lost a leg at Second Manassas in August 1862 and needed nine months of recovery time before returning to service. Certainly, Meade suggested, three and a half months was not enough time for Sickles to do likewise.
Even Sickles’s most ardent boosters agreed. The general-in-chief thought, not without reason, that [Sickles] was not yet able to endure the hardships of service and fulfill all the duties incumbent on the position he asked for amongst us,
de Trobriand wrote. He could walk only on a crutch, and could not yet support the pressure of an artificial leg.
Sickles could not even ride a horse, let alone endure a march. Reporting on October 19, another of Sickles’s hometown papers, the New York Tribune, wrote that His friends [at the front] think his valor carries him too far in his present physical condition.
Sickles himself later admitted as much, feeling great doubt as to my ability to hold out for permanent command and active campaigning.
The welcome given him by his two old divisions went far to console him for his disappointment,
de Trobriand said, but beneath the good show Sickles put on for his men, the once triumphant-feeling general felt more embittered toward Meade than ever. He returned to Washington, determined that if he could not be with the army to fight the Confederates, he would renew his war against the army commander himself.
In his twenties, Philippe Régis Denis de Keredern de Trobriand moved from France to America on a dare. He later became a naturalized