Qualla: Battle of North Anna

Battle of North Anna: Introduction

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. "We must strike them a blow," Robert E. Lee repeated from his sickbed, delirious with illness while the greatest tactical trap of his career sat waiting to be sprung. It was May 1864, and along the banks of the North Anna River in central Virginia, Lee had split Ulysses S. Grant's army in two with an ingenious line of earthworks shaped like an inverted V. The Union forces had walked right into it. But the blow never came. The Battle of North Anna, fought May 23 through 26, stands as one of the Civil War's most tantalizing might-have-beens: a moment when Confederate engineering brilliance collided with the frailty of a single human body, and the entire course of the war hung in the balance.

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Battle of North Anna: The Chess Match South

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit O'Sullivan, Timothy H., 1840-1882 -- Photographer, Public domain. By late May 1864, Grant and Lee had been locked in a grinding dance of death for three weeks. After the bloodbaths of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House, with nearly 61,000 combined casualties between them, Grant refused to retreat north as every previous Union commander...

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Image: O'Sullivan, Timothy H., 1840-1882 -- Photographer | Public domain

Battle of North Anna: Bayonets as Ladders

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Timothy H. O'Sullivan, Public domain. On the morning of May 23, the Union army arrived at the river in force. Hancock's corps advanced down the Telegraph Road toward Chesterfield Bridge, where a small South Carolina brigade under Colonel John W. Henagan had thrown up a dirt redoubt. Meanwhile, General Warren's V Corp...

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Image: Timothy H. O'Sullivan | Public domain

Battle of North Anna: The Hog Snout Line

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. That night, Lee and his chief engineer Martin L. Smith conceived one of the war's most elegant defensive positions. Rather than simply fortifying the river bluffs, they designed a five-mile line shaped like an inverted V, nicknamed the "hog snout line," with its apex anchored at ...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Battle of North Anna: The Blow That Never Fell

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. On May 24, Grant fell directly into the trap. His men crossed the river on both sides of Ox Ford, exactly as Lee had planned. Grant even telegraphed Washington triumphantly: "The enemy have fallen back from North Anna. We are in pursuit." He had no idea his army was being split a...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Battle of North Anna: What Remains Along the River

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided, Public domain. For two more days the armies stared at each other from their earthworks. Grant finally grasped the danger of his divided position and ordered his men to dig in rather than advance. On the night of May 26, the Union army slipped away to the southeast, beginning another flanking ma...

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Image: Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided | Public domain