From July 27–29, 1864, Union forces launched the First Battle of Deep Bottom along the James River in Henrico County, Virginia, as part of the grinding Siege of Petersburg. Acting on Ulysses S. Grant’s orders, Major General Winfield S. Hancock’s II Corps and Major General Philip H. Sheridan’s cavalry crossed the river to threaten Richmond, draw Confederate troops north of the James, and—if conditions allowed—give Sheridan an opening either to strike the capital or to cut the Virginia Central Railroad.
The movement succeeded in forcing Robert E. Lee to shift several divisions away from Petersburg, though the fighting itself remained tactically inconclusive. Union forces probed Confederate lines but could not break through the entrenched defenses north of the river.
Even without a tactical breakthrough, the diversion achieved Grant’s broader purpose: it temporarily weakened the Confederate positions defending Petersburg. Just one day after the Deep Bottom operation ended, Grant launched the assault that became the Battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864—an attack shaped in part by the troop movements triggered at Deep Bottom, though ultimately marred by failure.
Photo: Capture of four guns by Barlow’s Division, July 27, 1864 via Wikipedia Commons, public domain
