February 5, 1865 Sunday
Grant was active again after the months of siege at Petersburg. The Federal Second and Fifth Corps plus cavalry again headed toward the Boydton Plank Road and Hatcher’s Run. Despite inclement weather they reached the Boydton Plank Road with little difficulty. The movement was in line with the obvious strategy of Grant to extend the Federal lines south and west of Petersburg to weaken the already strained defensive positions of Lee. The Confederates did move out troops but were unable to do much against the Federal cavalry and infantry. The Battle of Hatcher’s Run (
http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/hatcher-s-run.html ) was also known as Dabney’s Mill and included Armstrong’s Mill, Rowanty Creek, and Vaughan Road.
In South Carolina there was skirmishing at Duncanville and Combahee Ferry, as Sherman’s four corps continued crossing the various streams and swamps of the southern part of the state. In addition, fighting occurred at Charles Town, West Virginia; Braddock’s Farm near Welaka, Florida; and near McMinnville, Tennessee.
President Lincoln had not given up his plan for compensated emancipation. He read to the Cabinet a proposal to pay $400,000,000 to the slave states if they abandoned resistance to the national authority before April 1. One half would be paid upon the ending of hostilities and the remainder upon approval of the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. But the Cabinet unanimously disapproved the measure which would never have passed Congress.
Blockade runner Chameleon, commanded by Lieutenant Wilkinson, attempted to run through the blockade of Charleston to deliver desperately needed supplies for General Lee's troops but was unsuccessful. Having run into the Cape Fear River the previous month only to find Fort Fisher in Union hands, the bold Wilkinson had returned to Nassau and learned on 30 January that Charleston was still held by the South. He departed on 1 February, evaded U.S.S. Vanderbilt after a lengthy chase, but found that the blockade of Charleston had been augmented by so many ships from the Wilmington station that he could not get into the harbor while the tide was high. "As this was the last night during that moon, when the bar could be crossed during the dark hours," Wilkinson later wrote, "the course of the Chameleon was again, and for the last time, shaped for Nassau. As we turned away from the land, our hearts sank within us, while the conviction forced itself upon us, that the cause for which so much blood had been shed, so many miseries bravely endured, and so many sacrifices cheerfully made, was about to perish at last!"
U.S.S. Niagara, under Commodore Thomas T. Craven, learned that "the pirate ram" Stonewall was repairing at Ferrol, Spain. He departed Dover, England, for Spain next day but because of foul weather did not reach Coruña, Spain, some nine miles from Ferrol, until 11 February. He requested assistance in blockading the ironclad from U.S.S. Sacramento but found that she was at Lisbon repairing and would not be ready for sea for ten days. Craven himself put into Ferrol on the 15th and maintained a close watch on Stonewall.
U.S.S. Hendrick Hudson, commanded by Acting Lieutenant Charles H. Rockwell, reported locating the sunken wreck of U.S.S. Anna, commanded by Acting Ensign Henry W. Wells, south of Cape Roman, Florida. Anna had departed Key West on 30 December and had not been heard from since. Apparently, an accidental explosion had ripped the schooner apart. Rockwell found no survivors.