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3 unusual facts about Overland Campaign


George Sykes

Meade and general-in-chief Ulysses S. Grant agreed that Sykes was not a good choice for the upcoming Overland Campaign in May 1864, so when the Army of the Potomac was reorganized that spring, Sykes lost his corps and was sent to uneventful duty in the Department of Kansas.

John Joseph Abercrombie

After the conclusion of the Peninsula Campaign, Abercrombie was replaced as commander in favor of younger officers and spent the next year involved in the defense of Washington, D.C., and, in 1864, headed various Union supply depots in Virginia during the Overland Campaign.

Robert H. Strahan

In 1864, he joined his regiment and fought during the Overland Campaign, but soon came down with typhoid pneumonia and was sent back to Washington, D.C. to recover.


Henry L. Eustis

In the reorganization of the Army of the Potomac preceding Ulysses S. Grant’s Overland Campaign in 1864, Eustis’s brigade was moved to the 2nd Division of VI Corps under Brig. Gen. George Getty.

James H. Wilson

Grant promoted him to brevet major general on May 6, 1864, and had him assigned to command a division of cavalry under Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan, which he did with boldness and skill in numerous fights of the Overland Campaign and in the Valley Campaigns of 1864.

United States Military Railroad

At the conclusion of the Overland Campaign in 1864, LTG Grant directed MG Meade to transfer his Army of the Potomac to the south side of the James River in effort to capture the Confederate rail center of Petersburg and sever Richmond’s supply lines.


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