Hampton Newsome presented the program at the Fort Sumter Civil War Round Table on March 10 by talking about the subject of his newest book, Gettysburg's Southern Front:  Opportunity and Failure at Richmond (2022).  Little was known about this failed Union operation until Newsome wrote his book.

Gen. Henry Halleck ordered Maj. Gen. John Dix to take 20,000 troops from garrisons at Yorktown, Williamsburg, Suffolk and Norfolk, cut the rail and communication lines north of Richmond and perhaps capture the Confederate Capital. In response, Confederate troops were moved from North Carolina and central Virginia to defend Richmond and the railroad bridges.

Newsome explained how the operation failed due to unclear orders on how to take the city and cut the railroads, and how the Federals dilluted their numerical superiority because they were cautious.

Presenter:  Hampton  Newsome, a University of Virginia graduate who lives in Arlington, Va., was an attorney for the Federal Trade Commission for 24 years. He is the author of The Fight for the Old North State:  The Civil War in North Carolina, January - May 1864  (2019), which won the Emerging Civil War Book Award in 2020, and Richmond Must Fall:  The Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, October 1864 (2011).