Gettysburg's Southern Front

Opportunity and Failure at Richmond

Modern War Studies

by Hampton Newsome

Sales Date: October 3, 2022

424 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 in

Hardcover
9780700633470
Published: October 2022

$36.95

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eBook
9780700633487
Published: October 2022

Ebook version available from your favorite ebook retailer.

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On June 14, 1863, US Major General John Adams Dix received the following directive from General-in-Chief Henry Halleck: “All your available force should be concentrated to threaten Richmond, by seizing and destroying their railroad bridges over the South and North Anna Rivers, and do them all the damage possible.” With General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia marching toward Gettysburg and only a limited Confederate force guarding Richmond, Halleck sensed a rare opportunity for the Union cause.

In response, Dix, who had lived a life of considerable public service but possessed limited military experience, gathered his men and began a slow advance. During the ensuing operation, 20,000 US troops would threaten the Confederate capital and seek to cut the railroads supplying Lee’s army in Pennsylvania. To some, Dix’s campaign presented a tremendous chance for US forces to strike hard at Richmond while Lee was off in Pennsylvania. To others, it was an unnecessary lark that tied up units deployed more effectively in protecting Washington and confronting Lee’s men on Northern soil.

In this study, Newsome offers an in-depth look into this little-known Federal advance against Richmond during the Gettysburg Campaign. The first full-length examination of Dix’s venture, this volume not only delves into the military operations at the time, but also addresses concurrent issues related to diplomacy, US war policy, and the involvement of enslaved people in the Federal offensive.

Gettysburg’s Southern Front also points to the often-unrecognized value in examining events of the US Civil War beyond the larger famous battles and campaigns. At the time, political and military leaders on both sides carefully weighed Dix’s efforts at Richmond and understood that the offensive had the potential to generate dramatic results. In fact, this piece of the Gettysburg Campaign may rank as one of the Union war effort’s more compelling lost opportunities in the East, one that could have changed the course of the conflict.

"This study’s value extends beyond its important connections to the Gettysburg Campaign. While those seeking a broader understanding of the Army of Northern Virginia’s invasion into Pennsylvania and the Union efforts to stop it will find Newsome’s smartly crafted book essential, anyone desirous of deepening their knowledge about the roles African Americans played in Civil War operations, interactions between civilians and the military, or the environment's impact on troops will find Newsome’s study of great worth."—Civil War News
"A masterful campaign narrative of understudied military actions."—Civil War Monitor
"Hampton Newsome has a knack for finding parts of the Civil War that have been either ignored or undercovered and then doing a a great job of researching and writing compelling narratives about those parts. This wonderful book is no exception."—Student of the American Civil War
"Newsome’s new book is a marvelously researched history of five weeks of Union and Confederate maneuvering to control the Confederate capital."—The Reconstruction Era
"Newsome’s account of the Union operations around Richmond during the Gettysburg campaign illumines a host of issues long overlooked."—Rocky Mountain Civil War Round Table
"Newsome marshals all of his prodigious research abilities and writing talents, along with strong map support, to craft yet another masterful microhistory of a lesser-known military operation."—Civil War Books and Authors
“The backwaters of Civil War military history have been understudied far too long. Even small operations shed enormous light on the varied experiences of armies North and South and enlighten us as to how the war was truly shaped. Gettysburg’s Southern Front by Hampton Newsome illuminates Union efforts to threaten Richmond while Robert E. Lee was invading Pennsylvania. It does so with commendably thorough research, clear writing, and useful analysis about why and how this sideshow was planned and executed and why its results fell short of what was expected. It is a model study of a small, unknown operation of the Civil War.”—Earl J. Hess, emeritus professor at Lincoln Memorial University and author of Pickett’s Charge—The Last Attack at Gettysburg
“Union operations east of Richmond in the summer of 1863 have never received the attention they merit, even though they were an important part of the larger struggle between the armies of the Union and Confederacy for advantage in the East that year. This makes the appearance of Hampton Newsome’s Gettysburg’s Southern Front decidedly welcome. Offering a clear narrative of events, where they fit into the larger war, and the factors that shaped their course and outcome, this is an excellent contribution to scholarship on the military history of America's great Civil War.”—Ethan Rafuse, professor of military history at the US Army Command General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and author of From the Mountains to the Bay: The War in Virginia, January–May 1862

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