The story of the Army of the James in the early phase of the offensive can be briefly told. Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler was ordered to advance upon Richmond from the southeast and threaten communications between the Confederate capital and the Southern States. With some 40,000 Union troops, the advance was begun. City Point, located at the junction of the James and Appomattox Rivers and soon to be the supply center for the attack on Petersburg, was captured on May 4, 1864. Within 2 weeks, however, a numerically inferior Confederate force shut up the Army of the James, “as if it had been in a bottle strongly corked,” in Bermuda Hundred, a loop formed by the winding James and Appomattox Rivers. Here Butler waited, while north of him the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia engaged in a series of bloody battles.

The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864, began what proved to be the start of the final campaign against the Army of Northern Virginia. Here Meade’s Army of the Potomac, numbering approximately 118,000 troops, fought the Confederate defenders of Richmond. Lee had about 62,000 men with him, while an additional 30,000 under Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard held the Richmond-Petersburg area. The battle resulted in a fearful loss of men on both sides, although the armies remained intact. This was followed by a series of fierce engagements around Spotsylvania Court House from May 8 to 21.

Failing to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia in these battles, Grant moved the Army of the Potomac to the east of Richmond. It was his hope that he would outflank the Confederate defenders by persistent night marches. Lee was not to be so easily outguessed, however. After minor battles at the North Anna River (May 23) and Totopotomoy Creek (May 29), Grant arrived at Cold Harbor, about 8 miles northeast of Richmond, but Lee’s army still stood between him and that city. On June 3, 2 days after he arrived at Cold Harbor, Grant ordered a direct frontal assault against the Confederate lines. He was repulsed with heavy losses—about 7,000 men. “I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made,” Grant would write many years later. By the end of the first month of Grant’s campaign, both sides had suffered heavy casualties, but the North’s ability to refill its depleted ranks was greater than the South’s. Lee’s offensive strength had been sapped. From the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House until the end of the war, except for counterattacks and the lunge at Fort Stedman during the siege of Petersburg, the Army of Northern Virginia was a defensive weapon only.

After Cold Harbor, Grant decided to turn quickly to the south of Richmond and isolate the city and the defending troops by attacking Petersburg and cutting the railroads that supplied them. Lee knew he could not allow this to happen. “We must destroy this army of Grant’s before he gets to James River,” he told one of his generals. “If he gets there, it will become a siege, and then it will be a mere question of time.”