Wylliesburgh

Wylliesburgh. First Rest. In June 1864, to deny General Robert E. Lee the use of the South Side Railroad and the Richmond and Danville Railroad, General Ulysses S. Grant sent General James H. Wilson and General August V. Kautz south of Petersburg on a cavalry raid to destroy track and rolling stock. Wylliesburgh was the first place the raiders stopped to rest after their repulse at Staunton River Bridge the previous day, June 25. Each brigade paused here for about two hours to make coffee and reorganize before continuing east towards the safety of the Union lines at Petersburg. The expedition had fulfilled Grant’s orders to destroy as much track as possible until the Confederates massed enough force to attack effectively. From this point on, the Wilson-Kautz raiders were in a race to safety, with the Confederate cavalry in hot pursuit. , “I not only had to choose my route and bring off my wounded, but make my way rapidly toward our army [in Petersburg] through the forest and small farms which covered the intervening country. It was, of course, almost impossible to return by the road I had come out on, and, looking over my maps, I concluded that my best chances lay due east through Wyliesburg, Christianville, and Greensborough. ... After resting, feeding, and caring for our horses and our wounded, of whom we now had something like two hundred in ambulances and country carriages, we silently took the road at midnight, passing noiselessly under the enemy’s guns not over four hundred yards away, and pushed on till daylight, when we found ourselves at Wyliesville with no enemy in sight.” , General James H. Wilson, Expedition Commander. , “The work of these two last days, performed under a burning sun and over hot fires, was extremely exhausting, and many of the men have not a never will recover from its effects. Not succeeding in burning the [Staunton River] bridge the command commenced its return about 11 P.M. Sunday, June [25], striking to eastward in the direction of Christianville, camping between Christianvile and Lewisburg [Lewiston, the county seat, present-day Lunenburg]. This was the hottest day of the raid, the thermometer standing at 105 [degrees] Farenheit in the shade at 2:30 P.M.” , Lieutenant Colonel George A. Purington, 2nd Ohio Cavalry