Gettysburg's Southern Front: Opportunity and Failure at Richmond

On June 14, 1863, US Major General John Adams Dix received the following directive from General-in-Chief Henry Halleck: “All your available force should be concentrated to threaten Richmond, by seizing and destroying their railroad bridges over the South and North Anna Rivers, and do them all the damage possible.” With General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia marching toward Gettysburg and only a limited Confederate force guarding Richmond, Halleck sensed a rare opportunity for the Union cause.In response, Dix, who had lived a life of considerable public service but possessed limited military experience, gathered his men and began a slow advance. During the ensuing operation, 20,000 US troops would threaten the Confederate capital and seek to cut the railroads supplying Lee’s army in Pennsylvania. To some, Dix’s campaign presented a tremendous chance for US forces to strike hard at Richmond while Lee was off in Pennsylvania. To others, it was an unnecessary lark that tied up units deployed more effectively in protecting Washington and confronting Lee's men on Northern soil. In this study, Newsome offers an in-depth look into this little-known Federal advance against Richmond during the Gettysburg Campaign. The first full-length examination of Dix’s venture, this volume not only delves into the military operations at the time, but also addresses concurrent issues related to diplomacy, US war policy, and the involvement of enslaved people in the Federal offensive. Gettysburg’s Southern Front also points to the often-unrecognized value in examining events of the US Civil War beyond the larger famous battles and campaigns. At the time, political and military leaders on both sides carefully weighed Dix’s efforts at Richmond and understood that the offensive had the potential to generate dramatic results. In fact, this piece of the Gettysburg Campaign may rank as one of the Union war effort’s more compelling lost opportunities in the East, one that could have changed the course of the conflict.

Table of Contents:
List of Maps Introduction Part One: An Opportunity in Virginia 1. Lee Heads North 2. John Dix and the Department of Virginia 3. The Union Raid on Aylett’s Foundry 4. Halleck’s Plans to Counter Lee’s Invasion 5. Richmond’s Defenders Part Two: Spear’s Strike against the Virginia Central 6. Dix Begins His Peninsula Campaign 7. Spear’s Raid to the South Anna 8. Rooney Lee's Capture 9. Rebel Diplomacy 10. Richmond Prepares Part Three: The Blackberry Raid 11. Dix Prepares the Second Wave 12. Keyes’s Advance to Bottom's Bridge 13. The Fight at Crump’s Crossroads 14. Getty’s Expedition to the South Anna 15. To the RF&P Bridge 16. The Attack on the RF&P Bridge Part Four: In Gettysburg’s Wake 17. The Peace Mission 18. The End at Richmond 19. Halleck’s Bootless Plans Part Five: Conclusion: Looking Back 20. The Forgotten Campaign 21. Questions of Supply 22. The Broader Scope Appendix A: Federal Order of Battle Appendix B: Confederate Order of Battle Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index Photo gallery appears following page 143

About the Author :
Hampton Newsome is the author of Richmond Must Fall: The Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, October 1864 and The Fight for the Old North State: The Civil War in North Carolina, January-May 1864.

Review :
"In a wonderfully detailed and rich volume, Hampton Newsome tells a story few have heard before His volume reveals how one can integrate the many themes of Civil War History into a skillfully crafted account that examines what happened from multiple perspectives, featuring the interplay of soldiers and civilians at many levels as well as how enslaved people took advantage of the disorder engendered by military operations to secure their freedom."--Journal of Military History "Newsome's account furthers understanding of the complexity of the war's operations."--Journal of Southern History "Altogether, Gettysburg's Southern Front is well written, deeply researched, and provides excellent analysis, breaking new ground in the literature of the war, with its look at what was potentially a decisive moment in the war."--New York Military Affairs Symposium "A monograph infused with meticulous research, probing analysis, and a smooth narrative style that can serve as a model for today's historians attempting write a modern campaign study."--Civil War Times "This study's value extends beyond its important connections to the Gettysburg Campaign. While those seeking a broader understanding of the Army of Northern Virginia's invasion into Pennsylvania and the Union efforts to stop it will find Newsome's smartly crafted book essential, anyone desirous of deepening their knowledge about the roles African Americans played in Civil War operations, interactions between civilians and the military, or the environment's impact on troops will find Newsome's study of great worth."--Civil War News "A masterful campaign narrative of understudied military actions."--Civil War Monitor "Hampton Newsome has a knack for finding parts of the Civil War that have been either ignored or undercovered and then doing a a great job of researching and writing compelling narratives about those parts. This wonderful book is no exception."--Student of the American Civil War "Newsome's new book is a marvelously researched history of five weeks of Union and Confederate maneuvering to control the Confederate capital."--The Reconstruction Era "Newsome's account of the Union operations around Richmond during the Gettysburg campaign illumines a host of issues long overlooked."--Rocky Mountain Civil War Round Table "Newsome marshals all of his prodigious research abilities and writing talents, along with strong map support, to craft yet another masterful microhistory of a lesser-known military operation."--Civil War Books and Authors "The backwaters of Civil War military history have been understudied far too long. Even small operations shed enormous light on the varied experiences of armies North and South and enlighten us as to how the war was truly shaped. Gettysburg's Southern Front by Hampton Newsome illuminates Union efforts to threaten Richmond while Robert E. Lee was invading Pennsylvania. It does so with commendably thorough research, clear writing, and useful analysis about why and how this sideshow was planned and executed and why its results fell short of what was expected. It is a model study of a small, unknown operation of the Civil War."--Earl J. Hess, emeritus professor at Lincoln Memorial University and author of Pickett's Charge--The Last Attack at Gettysburg "Union operations east of Richmond in the summer of 1863 have never received the attention they merit, even though they were an important part of the larger struggle between the armies of the Union and Confederacy for advantage in the East that year. This makes the appearance of Hampton Newsome's Gettysburg's Southern Front decidedly welcome. Offering a clear narrative of events, where they fit into the larger war, and the factors that shaped their course and outcome, this is an excellent contribution to scholarship on the military history of America's great Civil War."--Ethan Rafuse, professor of military history at the US Army Command General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and author of From the Mountains to the Bay: The War in Virginia, January-May 1862