Gettysburg’s Southern Front: Opportunity and Failure at Richmond

On July 6, 2023, author Hampton Newsome delivered a lecture about the little-known United States offensive against Richmond during the Gettysburg Campaign in the summer of 1863. Sometimes referred to as the Blackberry Raid, the Union offensive was led by John Dix and provided a significant opportunity as 20,000 U.S. troops advanced on the Confederate capital and sought to cut the railroads supplying Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in Pennsylvania. To some, Dix’s campaign presented a tremendous chance for federal forces to strike hard at Richmond while Lee was 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. Hampton Newsome is the author of several award-winning books on the Civil War, including Richmond Must Fall: The Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, October 1864 (2012); The Fight for the Old North State: The Civil War in North Carolina, January–May 1864 (2019); and his most recent title, Gettysburg’s Southern Front: Opportunity and Failure at Richmond (2022). Gettysburg’s Southern Front received the Edwin C. Bearss Book Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Civil War History from the Chicago Civil War Roundtable and was named one of top 10 books of 2022 by Civil War Books and Authors. The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.