March 2022
Smith Run and Fredericksburg
Having Salem Church, and now cut off from retreating back through Fredericksburg, the Union VI Corps, under Major General John Sedgwick spent the morning of May 4, 1863, awaiting word from Army of the Potomac’s commander Joseph Hooker and wondering what the Army of Northern Virginia was going to do next.
On the eastern portion of what became known as the Second Fredericksburg Confederate Major General Jubal Early’s Division was preparing to attack. Brigadier General John B. Gordon‘s Confederate troops sat on Marye’s Heights and troops under Brigadier General Robert Hoke and Brigadier General Harry Hays were just below the Plank Road. Across from them were Brigadier General Albion Howe’s Division, of the Army of the Potomac’s VI Corps, consisting of brigades commanded by Brigadier General Thomas Lewis Grant. That morning Gordon’s Neill’s position in a limited, unsuccessful assault. In the fading daylight Colonel Edward
Colonel attacked Alexander’s guns fired three rounds, signaling the start of the main Confederate assault on the Union VI Corps. Gordon’s men attacked again, joined by Hays’ and Hoke’s Brigades charging across the Plank Road. Neill’s men were defeated and broke for the rear. Alerted by the sound of Neill’s defeat, Grant’s Vermont Brigade made themselves ready, and awaited the assault.
The onrushing Confederates had already overrun the VI Corps’ first line of defense on Smith Run, just west of Fredericksburg, splashed across to the other side, and swarmed up the slope. The Vermont Brigade waited behind the crest of the ridge, and in a sunken road, and with the sun at their back.
Holding their fire while the Southerners advanced into a killing zone, the Vermonters then rose up and delivered several volleys that left the ground strewn with dead and dying soldiers. The fighting was short lived, but intense. Three of Grant’s men were awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions at Smith Run. Sergeant Major Amos J. Cummings, of the 26th New Jersey, was recognized for helping to pull back a battery of field artillery from a dangerous and exposed position. Sergeant Robert J. Coffey, of the 4th Vermont, captured two officers and five privates of the 8th Louisiana. First Lieutenant Frank G. Butterfield, of the 6th Vermont, took command of his unit’s skirmish line in the oncoming darkness and covered its retreat.
The Union success was short lived though, as Confederates had gained a position to the north, and there were no reinforcements to available. This brief action bought the Union VI Corps a short respite in which to begin withdrawing. Grant reformed his brigade in the darkness, throwing our skirmishers, and covered the retreat toward, and across, Banks’ Ford, thus bringing the Battle of Second Fredericksburg to a close.
Most of the Salem Church/ Second Fredericksburg battlefield was lost to development long ago. In 1996, the City of Fredericksburg set aside 4.5 acres of the battlefield near Hugh Mercer Elementary School. In 2001, CVBT and its partners preserved an 11+ acre portion of this battlefield at a cost of $300,000. In 2008 CVBT conveyed its land to the City of Fredericksburg, which has since put in trails in what is now a 15.5 acre urban park.
Terry Rensel is the Executive Director of the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust. The mission of the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust is to associated with the four major campaigns:
online at
preserve land Fredericksburg,