Bermuda Hundred Landing

Bermuda Hundred Landing. "A bottle strongly corked". In the spring of 1864, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, commander of all Federal armies, ordered advances throughout the Confederacy. On May 5, Union Gen. Benjamin F. Butler landed his Army of the James here on Bermuda Hundred to operate against Richmond, Petersburg, and Confederate lines of supply. Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard countered Butler's thrusts against the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad, Drewry's Bluff, and Petersburg. By June, Butler, concerned for his lengthy supply line, had withdrawn inside defensive earthworks built across the peninsula., Grant wrote in his final report on the "Richmond Campaign," July 22, 1865, that after Beauregard built parallel lines, Butler's army was as tightly confined "as if it had been in a bottle strongly corked." Grant's words hurt Butler, whose army participated in several operations against Petersburg and Richmond. Grant explained in his Memoirs (1881) that he had quoted his chief engineer, Gen. John G. Barnard, who had sketched Butler's position (which Grant had not then seen) and described it to Grant with those words. Grant regretted using them and apologized for the "injustice" that he had caused Butler, who had given "his very earnest support to the war" and "his own best efforts" as well., Butler, in his autobiography, Butler's Book (1892), noted with satisfaction that Grant also said in an 1878 interview, "I have always regretted the censure that unwittingly came upon Butler in that campaign, and my report was the cause." Despite Grant's clarification, however, the "bottled up-Butler" myth endures., Bermuda Hundred Campaign , US Forces (Butler): ca. 39,000 , CS Forces (Beauregard): ca. 18,000 , Total Killed, Wounded, and Missing: ca. 10,000, (captions) , "As if he had been in a bottle strongly corked". , Union defenses, Bermuda Hundred line Photos courtesy Library of Congress