To better understand the campaign around Petersburg it is necessary to take the reader back a little way.  Simultaneous with Grant’s advance on the Rapidan an army of thirty thousand under the Union General B.F.  Butler was making its way up the James River and threatening Petersburg.  It was well known that Richmond would be no longer tenable should the latter place fall.  Beauregard was commanding all of North Carolina and Virginia on the south side of the James River, but his forces were so small and so widely scattered that they promised little protection.  When Lee and his veterans were holding back Grant and the Union Army at the Wilderness, Brocks Cross Roads, and Spottsylvania C.H., Beauregard with a handful of veterans and a few State troops was “bottling up Butler” on the James.  What Kershaw had been to Lee at the Wilderness, McGowan at Spottsylvania, General Hagood was to General Beauregard on the south side around Petersburg.  General Beauregard does not hesitate to acknowledge what obligations he was under to the brave General Hagood and his gallant band of South Carolinians at the most critical moments during the campaign, and it is unquestioned that had not General Hagood come up at this opportune moment, Petersburg would have fallen a year before it did.

General Beauregard fought some splendid battles on the south side, and if they had not been overshadowed by the magnitude of Lee’s from the Wilderness to the James, they would have ranked in all probability as among the greatest of the war.  But from one cause and then another during the whole campaign Beauregard was robbed of his legitimate fruits of battle.

The low, swampy nature of the country below Richmond, especially between the James and the Chickahominy, prevented Lee’s scouts from detecting the movements of Grant’s Army for some days after the movement began.  Grant had established his headquarters at Wilcox’s Landing, on the James, and had all his forces in motion on the south of the river by the 13th of June, while Lee was yet north of the Chickahominy.

General Beauregard and the gallant troops under him deserve the highest praise for their conduct in successfully giving Butler battle, while Petersburg was in such imminent peril, and Lee still miles and miles away.  It is scarcely credible to believe with what small force the plucky little Creole held back such an overwhelming army.

When Grant made his first crossing of the James and began the movement against Petersburg, General Beauregard had only Wise’s Brigade of infantry, twenty-two pieces of artillery, two regiments of cavalry under General Bearing, and a few regiments of local militia.