On Saturday, September 16, 1864, Confederate cavalry under General Wade Hampton, having ridden around the Union left flank for two days, attacked the Union rear at Coggins’ Point, Virginia, six miles down the James River from Ulysses Grant’s headquarters, where a large herd of cattle awaited slaughter to feed the Union Army of the Potomac. Two Confederate brigades fought a holding action, while a third brigade rounded up the animals at Coggins’ Point. The three Confederate brigades then drove just under 2500 beeves, accompanied by 300 Union prisoners, into the Petersburg defenses where Robert E. Lee’s beleaguered forces soon feasted on Yankee beef. For a brief time Confederate morale at Petersburg was lifted, at a cost of a mere sixty-one casualties during Hampton’s audaciously successful “cattle raid.”
00000174-b11b-ddc3-a1fc-bfdbb1a20000The Schreiner University Department of History is honoring the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War with a series of short vignettes focusing on events from 1861 through 1865. The Civil War was the most destructive conflict in American history, but it was also one of our most defining moments as a people and as a nation. Let us know what you think about "This Week in the Civil War." E-mail your comments to Dr. John Huddleston at jhuddles@schreiner.edu.Airs: Weekdays at 5:19 a.m., 8:19 a.m., 4:19 p.m. on KTXI and 4:49 a.m., 9:29 p.m. on KSTX.