Qualla: Battle of Chaffin's Farm

Battle of Chaffin's Farm: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit See below, Public domain. Just before dawn on September 29, 1864, soldiers of the United States Colored Troops moved through fog toward Confederate breastworks atop New Market Heights, ten miles southeast of Richmond. Most had been enslaved within recent memory. Now they carried Springfield rifles into the kind of frontal assault that veteran officers privately considered close to suicidal. By the end of the day, fourteen of them would earn the Medal of Honor - the largest concentration of that award given to African American soldiers in any single Civil War engagement. The battle that produced those medals is officially called the Battle of Chaffin's Farm and New Market Heights. The men who fought it, and the families who would remember them, deserve to be named.

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Image: See below | Public domain

Battle of Chaffin's Farm: Why Grant Sent the USCT to the Heights

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Ulysses S. Grant's plan for late September 1864 was a two-pronged offensive. South of Petersburg, four divisions would try to cut the South Side Railroad - the operation that became the Battle of Peebles' Farm. North of the James River, Benjamin Butler's Army of the James would a...

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Image: Public domain

Battle of Chaffin's Farm: The Charge at New Market Heights

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit William Waud (original sketch), Public domain. The first assault was repulsed. Confederate musketry from prepared positions tore the attacking brigade apart, and the field in front of the breastworks filled with the dead and wounded of the 4th, 6th, and 36th USCT regiments. It was during this attack that Sergeant Major Christ...

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Image: William Waud (original sketch) | Public domain

Battle of Chaffin's Farm: Fourteen Medals

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit William Waud (original sketch), Public domain. The Medal of Honor citations from New Market Heights and Chaffin's Farm read like a roll call of quiet courage. Sergeant Major Fleetwood of the 4th USCT. Private James Gardiner of the 36th USCT, who shot a Confederate officer off the parapet and bayoneted him as the works were ca...

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Image: William Waud (original sketch) | Public domain

Battle of Chaffin's Farm: Fort Harrison and the Counter-attack

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit William Waud (original sketch), Public domain. While the USCT were storming the heights, George Stannard's brigade of the XVIII Corps - veterans of Gettysburg - rushed Fort Harrison from the southeast. They took cover in a depression just below the fort, paused for breath, then carried it. Brigadier General Hiram Burnham was ...

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Image: William Waud (original sketch) | Public domain

Battle of Chaffin's Farm: What the Battle Bought

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit William Waud (original sketch), Public domain. The fighting around Chaffin's Farm cost nearly 5,000 casualties. It did exactly what Grant intended: forced Lee to shift troops north, which helped the Union army to the south win at Peebles' Farm. After October the two armies settled into the trench warfare that would grind on u...

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Image: William Waud (original sketch) | Public domain