The Battle of Ashland
THE BATTLE OF ASHLAND happened June 1, 1864. It involved Hanover Courthouse, Ellett’s Bridge over the South Anna River, and the Richmond Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad tracks.
It has largely been ignored by historians until recently, but it was important to those who experienced it. The larger context of the Battle of Ashland was Federal General Ulysses S. Grant’s campaign toward Richmond in the spring and summer of 1864, and in particular, the early June 1864 Battle of Cold Harbor.
Union General Philip Sheridan’s 1st and 2nd Cavalry Divisions and two divisions of General Horatio Wright’s 6th Army Corps were fighting at Cold Harbor on June 1, 1864. About the same time two brigades of Union General James Wilson’s 3rd Cavalry Division were given the task of destroying the railroad bridges over the Pamunkey and South Anna Rivers to disrupt the supply lines and communication to Richmond.
After destroying the Virginia Central Railroad Bridge over the Pamunkey River north of Hanover Courthouse, Wilson sent Col. George H. Chapman’s brigade northwest to Elletts Crossing where the RF&P Bridge crossed the South Anna River just north of Ashland. On the way there he encountered Confederate forces under General Rooney Lee, Ridgley Brown, and Bradley Johnson. The Confederate forces retreated south along the RF&P Railroad tracks toward the town of Ashland.
In the meantime, Union Gen. Wilson had sent Col. John B. McIntosh’s brigade toward Hanover Courthouse where Confederate forces had just left on their way toward Ashland. Union Gen. McIntosh continued on toward Ashland too, and when he got there he set up positions on the north, east, and south sides of the tracks and placed soldiers in and around homes along the tracks.
Confederate forces under Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton, who had trained at Camp Ashland at the beginning of the war, and Brig. Gen. Thomas L Rosser1 came to the aid of the Confederates on Ashland Road near Ashland by moving north from Atlee Station southeast of Ashland to encounter McIntosh.
Other Confederates under Hampton, who had vacated Hanover Courthouse, positioned themselves south of Ashland on the RF&P tracks.
So McIntosh’s Union brigade was situated in Ashland and boxed in on the North, South, and East by the Confederates. The only escape route was west, but that would separate McIntosh’s brigade even more from the rest of the Union forces. It was an unexpected, perfect opportunity for Wade Hamptons’s cavalry to capture McIntosh’s entire cavalry brigade!
The Confederates dismounted and attacked. There was hand-to-hand combat by the dismounted cavalry on both sides. Just in time, Federal reinforcements came down from Elletts Crossing, giving McIntosh’s Union forces a northern escape route back toward Elletts Crossing, where he could join other Union forces. From Elletts Crossing the Union forces regrouped and were back at Hanover Courthouse by the evening.
St. George Tucker Brooke, who had attended prep school in Ashland, recounted an engagement with the enemy at Ashland in the late spring of 1864. It may well have been the Battle of Ashland that he describes, but it also may have been an engagement on May 11, 1864, just prior to the Battle of Yellow Tavern. Without the exact date, it is hard to tell, but some of the commanders in his description are those involved in the Battle of Ashland. Writes Brooke, “During the late Spring of 1864, Gen’l Fitzhugh Lee’s brigade halted on the ‘Telegraph Road’ in the rear of the ball room
[of the Ashland Hotel and Mineral Water Company] and the command was given, ‘Prepare to fight on foot; Dismount.’ The brigade dismounted, marched through the woods, perhaps three hundred yards and charged that ballroom which was filled with ‘Yankee’ soldiers. The ‘Yankees’ bounded out of the front windows and doors as we bounded in the rear windows and doors.
A sharp fight took place in the lawn. The enemy retreated rapidly from the lawn into the street where we followed them. A body of enemy’s cavalry, which had been cut off from their main force, charged us while we were on foot in the street. We poured a volley into them and repulsed them. I saw a northern soldier shot off his horse just at the corner of Uncle Saint’s yard. [304 S Center Street was the home of Male Academy headmaster St. George Tucker] My boyhood playground had become a field of battle.” 2
Who won the Battle of Ashland?
The Union did succeed in destroying the 2 railroad bridges and tracks in Ashland as well, but they paid a price in heavy casualties. The Confederates did not capture McIntosh’s brigade, but they did cause heavy casualties, chased the Union out of Ashland, and captured valuable Union horses and supplies as well. And within days, the Confederates had rebuilt the tracks and bridges. Both sides thought they had won. In the end, the Battle of Ashland was not an important strategic battle. Gordon Rhea writes in his Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, “The battle at Ashland, like most Civil War cavalry engagements, was stirring to participants but represented little more than a sideshow.” The important battle at Old Cold Harbor, according to Rhea, was to be decided by the Infantry, not the dashing Cavalry that fought at the Battle of Ashland.3
For additional reading on the battles of Ashland and Cold Harbor, see Gordon C Rhea’s Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, especially the chapter starting page 195 entitled “June 1, Grant and Lee Jockey for Position.” Mr. Rhea included in Appendixes I and II listings of the Union and Confederate forces and their leaders from which the list of units involved in this engagement is taken.
See also John M. Gabbert’s Military Operations in Hanover County Virginia 1861-1865, pages 88-89, available at Bell Book & Candle, 106 1/2 South Railroad Avenue, Ashland, VA 23005-2076, (804) 798-9047.
See also William N. McDonald’s A History of the Laurel Brigade, Chapter IX.
And see Ashland, Ashland: The Story of a Turn-of-the-Century Railroad Town, published by Brunswick Publishing in 1994. Available at the Ashland Museum and at Bell, Book & Candle in Ashland, VA.
A side note: The Richmond Dispatch, reporting on the Battle of Ashland the next day, described the Union troops as “mostly negro troops.” I have not found another account making that claim, but in the interest of including information on African-American participation in the Civil War, I include this quote.4
(The foregoing was summarized from Gordon C Rhea’s Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee and from Rosanne Groat Shalf’s Ashland Ashland and other research)
THE UNITS AND INDIVIDUAL COMMANDERS INVOLVED IN THE BATTLE OF ASHLAND
Federal Cavalry under Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan
3rd Division under Brig. Gen. James H. Wilson
1st Brigade under Col. John B. McIntosh
1st Connecticut Cavalry
3rd New Jersey Cavalry
2nd New York Cavalry
5th New York Cavalry
2nd Ohio Cavalry
18th Pennsylvania Cavalry
2nd Brigade under Col. George H. Chapman
3rd Indiana Cavalry
8th New York Cavalry
1st Vermont Cavalry
Confederate Cavalry corps under Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton
Hampton’s Division
Young’s Brigade under Col. Gilbert J. Wright
Rosser’s Brigade under Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Rosser
7th Virginia Cavalry
11th Virginia Cavalry
12th Virginia Cavalry
William H. F. “Rooney” Lee’s Division (see Endnote #2)
Chambliss’s Brigade under Brig. Gen. John R. Chambliss
9th Virginia Cavalry
10th Virginia Cavalry
Gordon’s Brigade under Col. John A. Baker
3rd North Carolina Cavalry
5th North Carolina Cavalry
Horse Artillery
South Carolina Battery under Maj. James F. Hart
Breckenridge’s Division
Maryland Line under Col. Bradley T. Johnson
1st Maryland Cavalry
Baltimore Light Artillery
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ENDNOTES:
1 Dispatch, Richmond, VA,
2 Brooke, St. George Tucker, Memoirs, Virginia Historical Society, Mss2 B7906a1, p. 16. A note of explanation here: Major Gen. W.H.F. Lee, known as Rooney Lee, was Robert E. Lee’s son. Fitzhugh Lee was Robert E. Lee’s nephew. Fitz and Rooney were cousins. The two were frequently confused when participants recounted their experiences in battle. That’s why they went by nicknames Fitz and Rooney. It may be that St. George Tucker Brooke, who mentions Fitz Lee, meant Rooney Lee instead.
3 Rhea, Gordon C, Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26 – June 3, 1864, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 2002, pp 195 to 223.
4 Richmond Dispatch, June 2, 1864.