What was the most significant event on June 9 during the U.S. Civil War?

Below are a few journal entries from 1862 and 1863 which shed light on what life was like for soldiers – the good, the bad and the ugly.
Monday, June 9, 1862: Battle of Port Republic, Virginia. Private George Michael Neese, a Confederate artilleryman with Chew’s Battery, gives his account of the battle: “When we arrived in sight of the field and smelled the battle smoke one of Jackson’s aids came dashing from the front with a ready and prompt inquiry, “Whose battery is this?” “Chew’s,” was the quick response. “Have you plenty of ammunition?” The last question was answered in the affirmative, and the fleeting courier said, “Hurry to the front, captain.” “Forward, double quick!” was the ringing command of our calm but gallant captain, and in a very few moments after we wheeled in battery on the battle-field, under a raking fire from the eight-gun battery strongly posted on the coaling against the mountain side, and with perfect command of the field we were in.
The fire of that battery was terrible for a while. However, we held our ground and opened on the coaling with all our guns, with the utmost endeavor to give the enemy the best work we had in the shop. Some of Jackson’s batteries were in the same field with us, and were firing on the coaling battery. The air trembled with a continual roll of musketry and the thunder of the artillery shook the ground. . . . The shell from the battery on the coaling was ripping the ground open all around us, and the air was full of screaming fragments of exploding shell, and I thought I was a goner.
After we had been under this dreadful fire about thirty minutes I heard a mighty shout on the mountain side in close proximity to the coaling, and in a few minutes after I saw General Dick Taylor’s Louisianans debouching from the undergrowth, and like a wave crested with shining steel rush toward the fatal coaling and deadly battery with fixed bayonets, giving the Rebel yell like mad demons. The crest of the coaling was one sheet of fire as the Federal batteries poured round after round of grape and canister into the faces of the charging Louisianans’. Yet the undaunted Southerners refused to be checked by the death and carnage in their ranks . . .”
Monday, June 9, 1862: Lt. Charles Wright Wills of the Union army writes in his journal of his experiences in occupied territory in and around Corinth, Mississippi. One story involves the courting customs of the locals: “At 12 m. we drew rein 25 miles from Corinth at Iuka. There are a couple of splendid springs in Iuka. One chalybeate, and the other sulphur water, and the town is the neatest I have seen in the country. Snuff-dipping is an universal custom here, and there are only two women in all Iuka that do not practice it. At tea parties, after they have supped, the sticks and snuff are passed round and the dipping commences. Sometimes girls ask their beaux to take a dip with them during a spark. I asked one if it didn’t interfere with the old-fashioned habit of kissing. She assured me that it did not in the least, and I marveled. . . . We celebrated the capture of Richmond on the 4th, but are now trying to forget that we made such fools of ourselves. Damn the telegraphs. We have awful news from Richmond to-day. It would make me sick to write it. I would rather have the army whipped than McClellan.
Tuesday, June 9, 1863: Battle of Brandy Station, Virginia. Confederate artilleryman Sergeant George Michael Neese, of Chew’s Battery at Brandy Station, writes in his journal some of his memories and impressions of the battle: “ We had another grand military display to-day, of a very distinctly different kind from those of a few days ago, however, but not far from the same field. This time the Yanks played a very conspicuous part in it, and there were no friendly charges in it nor sham battle business with blank cartridges, but plenty of bullets, bloody sabers, and screaming shell. West Pointers may know all about the theoretical probabilities and concomitant intricacies of war, but I think that for the last few nights the horse artillery has been permitted to roost a little too near the lion’s lair. As an evidence of that fact, early this morning the Yankees gathered in all the household and kitchen furniture, as well as some of the personal effects, belonging to our major, and came very near capturing some of the horse artillerymen in bed. . . . Soon after our cavalry fell back into the field the Yankee cavalry made a charge from the woods into the open field. Our courageous cavalry gallantly withstood the enemy’s first determined charge, and the field in front of the woods was covered with a mingled mass, fighting and struggling with pistol and saber like maddened savages.
At that juncture of the fray the warlike scene was fascinatingly grand beyond description, and such as can be produced and acted only by an actual and real combat. Hundreds of glittering sabers instantly leaped from their scabbards, gleamed and flashed in the morning sun, then clashed with metallic ring, searching for human blood, while hundreds of little puffs of white smoke gracefully rose through the balmy June air from discharging firearms all over the field in front of our batteries.
During the first charge in the early morn the artillerymen stood in silent awe gazing on the struggling mass in our immediate front, yet every man was at his post and ready for action at a moment’s notice; and as soon as our cavalry repulsed the enemy and drove them back into the woods, sixteen pieces of our horse artillery opened fire on the woods with a crash and sullen roar that made the morning air tremble and filled the woods with howling shell. . . . Stirring incidents and exciting events followed one another in quick succession, and no sooner was the enemy dislodged in our rear, than a heavy force that had been fighting us all morning advanced on our front, with cavalry and artillery. Their batteries at once opened a severe fire on our position, to which we immediately replied. Then the hardest and liveliest part of the artillery fighting commenced in earnest, and the thunder of the guns roared fiercely and incessantly for several hours.
At one time the Yankee gunners had such perfect range and distance of our position that their shrapnel shell exploded right over our guns, and two or three times I heard the slugs from the exploding shell strike my gun like a shower of iron hail. One shell exploded fearfully close to me and seriously wounded two of my cannoneers and raked the sod all around me. For about three long hours whizzing shot, howling shell, exploding shrapnel, and screaming fragments filled the air that hung over Fleetwood Heights with the music of war. . . .
We were on the field twelve hours, and during that time I fired my faithful gun one hundred and sixty times. This evening just before the battle closed, with the last few shots we fired I saw the fire flash from the cascabel of my gun, and I found that it was disabled forever — burnt entirely out at the breach. . .”


Pictures: 1863-06-09 Brandy Station Map Buford's Advance; 1863-06-09 Brandy Station Painting Cavalrymen fighting; 1863-06-09 Brandy Station Map - Gregg's attack on the Rebel flank; 1863-06-09 Brandy Station - Rebel charge Troiani
Since RallyPoint truncates survey selection text I am posting events that were not included and then the full text of each survey choice below:

A. Monday, June 9, 1862: Battle of Port Republic, Virginia. Leaving a brigade to protect against action by Maj Gen John Fremont’s Army of West Virginia, CSA Maj Gen Richard S. Ewell crosses the Shenandoah in support of CSA Maj Gen Thomas Stonewall Jackson in his action against Maj Gen James Shields division, resulting in a Confederate victory.
Just after 5:00am on June 9, Brig. Gen. Charles Winder led the famed "Stonewall" Brigade in an attack against Tyler’s position. Artillery rounds from the Coaling tore into Winder's men advancing across the open plain, driving them back, with Yankee infantry in hot pursuit. Though Jackson outnumbered Tyler on paper, Confederate reinforcements were slowed considerably by a bottleneck at the North Bridge.
The situation east of the River Road was entirely different. Thick woods shielded the Southerners' approach, allowing the 2nd and 4th Virginia to advance directly upon the Union gunners at the Coaling. The Virginians seized control of Tyler’s artillery platform only to be confronted by an onslaught of Federal infantry. After a vicious hand-to-hand struggle, the Confederates were forced to relinquish control of the guns while they waited for their own reinforcements. When help finally arrived in the form of Brig. Gen. Richard Taylor's Louisiana brigade, the Southerners again charged the Coaling, this time taking it in flank. This was too much for Tyler's men, who hastily fled down the reverse slope. With the Yankee artillery position firmly in Confederate hands, the whole of Tyler's line collapsed and withdrew in confusion.
With the two Federal wings now cut off from one another, the Yankees withdrew north through the Valley. After three weeks of marching and fighting, Jackson had neutralized the Union threat in the Shenandoah for the foreseeable future.
Background. Stonewall" Jackson’s Shenandoah Valley campaign achieved improbable success in the early summer of 1862. In early June, he led his small army to the town of Port Republic, only a few days ahead of two pursuing Union armies. From Port Republic, he could escape the valley and return to Richmond a hero. Jackson, however, could not pass on a chance to defeat the Union columns in detail as they approached, one on either side of the South Fork of the Shenandoah River. On June 8, Jackson’s men dealt a severe blow to Maj. Gen. John C. Fremont's Yankees at Cross Keys, on the west side of the fork.
That same day, Union cavalry crossed over from the east side of the fork and raided Jackson’s headquarters at Port Republic. In a brief skirmish the Yankees nearly captured Jackson and, for a time, controlled the vital North Bridge over the South Fork. The arrival of the 37th Virginia drove the Yankees from the village, leaving Jackson in possession of Port Republic and its river crossing.
The Federals—the lead element of Brig. Gen. James Shields' division, temporarily commanded by Brig. Gen. Erastus B. Tyler—established a strong defensive position along the Lewiston Lane. Their right rested on the river and extended along the Lewiston Lane toward the River Road, where their left was anchored on a high knoll called the Coaling. Tyler judiciously placed his artillery here, giving the Yankee gunners command of nearly their entire front which consisted primarily of an open field between the River Road and the South Fork. With Fremont cowed, Jackson made plans to attack and destroy this second column.
B. Tuesday, June 9, 1863: The largest cavalry battle in the war, Battle of Brandy Station, Virginia ends in a stalemate. At 4:30 A.M., Buford’s men splashed across Beverly’s Ford, four and a half miles northeast of Brandy Station, and quickly scattered surprised Confederate pickets. Firing their revolvers wildly, the pickets scrambled back towards the main camp near St. James Church, along the direct road to Brandy Station from Beverly’s Ford. Bleary-eyed Confederates at St. James Church hurled themselves into the fray and managed to stall Buford’s advance, claiming the life of Buford’s lead subordinate, Col. Benjamin "Grimes" Davis.
Stuart's horsemen suffered heavily, but bought enough time for their artillery to deploy and open a murderous fire on the congested Union column from the high ground around the church. His position in peril, Buford ordered a desperate charge on the Confederate battery. The 6th Pennsylvania led the assault with the 6th U.S. close behind. Undeterred by the canister and shrapnel scything through their ranks, the Union horsemen overran the guns before Brig. Gen. "Grumble" Jones's Confederates repulsed them.
With the guns back in action, Buford now sought to reach them by moving around the Confederate left flank on Yew Ridge. Dismounted Confederate troopers repulsed repeated attacks from behind a stone wall before being dislodged at around noon.
Meanwhile, delays were plaguing Gen. David Gregg’s Federal horsemen at Kelly’s Ford. Gregg’s scouted alerted him of the presence of Confederates in his front, prompting the Pennsylvanian to make a wide march around the enemy. It was 11:30 A.M. before Gregg reached Brandy Station, but he was now firmly in the Confederate rear.
Gregg’s path to St. James Church was blocked by Fleetwood Hill, a broad elevation where J.E.B. Stuart had established his headquarters. Union artillery opened on Fleetwood Hill, giving a considerable shock to Stuart, whose main force was entirely committed to the battle in his front. Gregg’s preparatory barrage, however, gave Stuart time to pull troops back to Fleetwood Hill to meet the first Union charge. Meanwhile, Confederates withdrawing from Yew Ridge were still holding Buford’s tired troopers at bay, allowing Stuart to shuffle more troops to face Gregg. The opposing lines crashed into one another again and again for almost five hours. Finally, hearing reports of incoming Confederate reinforcements, Pleasanton decided to withdraw at 5 P.M. Stuart did not pursue.
Background. Following the Confederate victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May of 1863, the two great eastern armies found themselves once more confronting each other along the line of Virginia’s Rappahannock River. Never one to forfeit the initiative, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee resolved to take the war once again onto Northern soil.
Beginning June 3, the Army of Northern Virginia marched west from Fredericksburg towards Culpeper Court House, on its way to the protection of the Shenandoah Valley. Lee ordered Gen. J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry to screen this movement, keeping the southern bank of the Rappahannock free of Union scouts. By June 8, roughly 9,500 of Stuart’s cavalrymen were concentrated at Brandy Station, a small crossroads roughly halfway between Culpeper and the Rappahannock. In preparation for his pivot northward, Lee directed Stuart to launch a diversionary raid across the river the next day, June 9.
Gen. Joseph Hooker, commanding the Union Army of the Potomac, correctly interpreted Stuart’s intentions. Redeploying his own cavalry opposite Brandy Station, he too ordered an attack for June 9. After the perceived failure of the mounted wing during the Chancellorsville Campaign, Hooker’s orders were plain: "disperse or destroy" Stuart’s entire command. Cavalry commander Gen. Alfred Pleasanton accordingly augmented his striking force with an ad hoc infantry brigade, bringing his strength to nearly 12,000 men. Stuart remained unaware of this rapid build-up of strength to his front. Pleasanton’s plan had called for a coordinated double attack by Gen. John Buford’s troopers at Beverly’s Ford and a force under Gen. David Gregg further south at Kelly’s Ford.
Although Pleasanton failed to destroy Stuart’s command, the hard fighting at Brandy Station definitively proved the fighting prowess of the much-maligned Northern horsemen—in the words of Stuart's own aide, "Brandy Station made the Federal cavalry." Stuart, for his part, was denounced in the Southern press for allowing himself to be surprised and very nearly destroyed on his own soil. Nevertheless, the Confederate infantry remained undetected, and continued the march that would eventually reach Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
C. Thursday, June 9, 1864: Thursday, June 9, 1864: Battle of Old Men and Young Boys at Petersburg, Virginia. Old Men and Young Boys hold off the union assault at a significant cost to themselves. Major General Quincy A. Gillmore's orders were to storm Petersburg, destroy its bridges, and return to Bermuda Hundred. Several miles from the city, tired from a night march and already behind schedule, his force split into three columns. Two brigades of infantry approached Petersburg from the east, while August V. Kautz's cavalry swung to the south. At about seven in the morning, the foot soldiers ran into Confederate pickets, who slowly withdrew to Petersburg's main defenses a mile outside of the city. These fortifications, called the Dimmock Line, ran in a ten-mile arc from the Appomattox River on the north all the way to the South Side Railroad and the Appomattox River again west of the city. Laid out beginning in August 1862 by Confederate General D. H. Hill, they were guarded by some fifty-five artillery batteries that had fallen into disrepair. Nevertheless, Gillmore approached cautiously and failed to press hard, mistakenly assuming the works were heavily defended.
By nine o'clock, the alarm had gone up in Petersburg—"all the available bell metal in the corporation broke into chorus with so vigorous a peal and clangor … as to suggest to the uninitiated a general conflagration," one of the city's residents recalled—and Wise immediately deployed the thousand or so men he had at hand while requesting reinforcements from Beauregard. After demonstrating in front of the fortifications for several hours, Gillmore pulled his troops back. To the south, meanwhile, in front of Batteries 27 and 28, Kautz encountered Fletcher H. Archer's Battalion of Virginia Reserves. The unit of 125 soldiers included a 59-year-old bank officer, three members of the city council, and a mill manager who had been up all night guarding prisoners. Archer, a veteran of the Mexican War (1846–1848), later described "heads silvered o'er with the frosts of advancing years," while noting that others of his men scarcely deserved to be called men at all, unable to "boast of the down upon the cheek."
Kautz improvised a charge at 11:30, but his Pennsylvania troopers were repelled. He then carefully deployed his full force, most of which had since dismounted, and attacked again, but Archer's men still managed to hold them off for nearly two hours. They were helped in their effort by local slaves who played music to simulate the arrival of Confederate reinforcements. By the time Union troops finally broke through, actual reinforcements had arrived. They met one column of Kautz's cavalry while a scratch force of what one witness described as "patients and penitents"—hospital patients and jail inmates—met the other. Kautz, hearing only silence from Gillmore's front, and facing the possibility of increased resistance, broke off the action and retreated to Bermuda Hundred.
Background On May 5, 1864, Butler's Army of the James landed at Bermuda Hundred and City Point on the James River, ten miles east of Petersburg. His charge was to disrupt rail lines and harass the Confederates south of Richmond while Grant and George G. Meade initiated the Overland Campaign by attacking Robert E. Lee's army to the north. While the Union forces suffered horrific casualties at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, North Anna River, and, at the end of the month, Cold Harbor, Butler's force was halted at Drewry's Bluff.
Undeterred, Butler cast his eye on Petersburg. The city served as an important transportation hub, where four railroads converged into the main line of the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad; its capture would be a blow to Lee's ability to defend the capital and would deny him easy access to supplies and reinforcements. A captured Confederate map and intelligence provided by runaway slaves and deserters suggested to Butler that Petersburg was not well defended. Confederate generals P. G. T. Beauregard and Henry A. Wise commanded a mere 2,200 militiamen in Petersburg proper while the rest of their meager force blocked Butler's way at Bermuda Hundred. These 2,200 defenders, meanwhile, were not all Confederate regulars, but included a motley assortment of "greyhaired men, and beardless boys," as one Petersburg citizen described them. Some were veterans, but others were dentists and business owners and men who had been exempt from military service because of age or infirmity; some did not even have working rifles.
Butler was an ambitious Massachusetts politician who kept alert for opportunities at personal glory, and in Petersburg he spied a headline-worthy prize. When Grant stalled at Cold Harbor, there was talk that Union forces might shift south toward Petersburg. The time to act, in other words, was now, before he would be forced to share his glory. Butler planned the attack for June 9 and placed Quincy A. Gillmore in charge of the expedition. Gillmore, who the year before had overseen the 54th Massachusetts's famous but failed assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, was blamed by Butler for the setback at Drewry's Bluff. And as he set off for Petersburg with 3,400 infantrymen, including United States Colored Troops, and 1,300 cavalry troopers under the German-born August V. Kautz, he did not enjoy his commanding general's full confidence.
On June 9, 1866, the city of Petersburg began an annual commemoration of the militia's victory. The ceremony, organized by a local Ladies' Memorial Association, served as a precursor to Confederate Memorial Day.


1. Monday, June 9, 1862 --- Battle of Port Republic, Virginia. Private George Michael Neese, a Confederate artilleryman with Chew’s Battery, gives his account of the battle: “When we arrived in sight of the field and smelled the battle smoke one of Jackson’s aids came dashing from the front with a ready and prompt inquiry, “Whose battery is this?” “Chew’s,” was the quick response. “Have you plenty of ammunition?” The last question was answered in the affirmative, and the fleeting courier said, “Hurry to the front, captain.” “Forward, double quick!” was the ringing command of our calm but gallant captain, and in a very few moments after we wheeled in battery on the battle-field, under a raking fire from the eight-gun battery strongly posted on the coaling against the mountain side, and with perfect command of the field we were in.
The fire of that battery was terrible for a while. However, we held our ground and opened on the coaling with all our guns, with the utmost endeavor to give the enemy the best work we had in the shop. Some of Jackson’s batteries were in the same field with us, and were firing on the coaling battery. The air trembled with a continual roll of musketry and the thunder of the artillery shook the ground. . . . The shell from the battery on the coaling was ripping the ground open all around us, and the air was full of screaming fragments of exploding shell, and I thought I was a goner.
After we had been under this dreadful fire about thirty minutes I heard a mighty shout on the mountain side in close proximity to the coaling, and in a few minutes after I saw General Dick Taylor’s Louisianans debouching from the undergrowth, and like a wave crested with shining steel rush toward the fatal coaling and deadly battery with fixed bayonets, giving the Rebel yell like mad demons. The crest of the coaling was one sheet of fire as the Federal batteries poured round after round of grape and canister into the faces of the charging Louisianans’. Yet the undaunted Southerners refused to be checked by the death and carnage in their ranks . . .”
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=June+9%2C+1862
2. Monday, June 9, 1862 --- Lt. Charles Wright Wills of the Union army writes in his journal of his experiences in occupied territory in and around Corinth, Mississippi. One story involves the courting customs of the locals: “At 12 m. we drew rein 25 miles from Corinth at Iuka. There are a couple of splendid springs in Iuka. One chalybeate, and the other sulphur water, and the town is the neatest I have seen in the country. Snuff-dipping is an universal custom here, and there are only two women in all Iuka that do not practice it. At tea parties, after they have supped, the sticks and snuff are passed round and the dipping commences. Sometimes girls ask their beaux to take a dip with them during a spark. I asked one if it didn’t interfere with the old-fashioned habit of kissing. She assured me that it did not in the least, and I marveled. . . . We celebrated the capture of Richmond on the 4th, but are now trying to forget that we made such fools of ourselves. Damn the telegraphs. We have awful news from Richmond to-day. It would make me sick to write it. I would rather have the army whipped than McClellan.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=June+9%2C+1862
3. Monday, June 9, 1862 --- Battle of Port Republic, Virginia. The Federals held to the coaling with bulldog tenacity, fighting like fiends, recognizing the fact that the point they were so gallantly defending was an all-important one, as it was the citadel of strength in Shields’s line and the key to his position. But the firm and unwavering courage and invincible prowess of Taylor’s Louisianans made them as persistent and obdurate in gaining and demanding, at the point of the bayonet, full possession . . . and for a while the hand-to-hand conflict raged frightfully, resembling more the onslaught of maddened savages than the fighting of civilized men. . . . then Northern valor began to succumb to Southern courage. The Federals wavered, sullenly gave back, and finally broke and retreated hastily, abandoning the batteries for which they had fought so valiantly, and left them in full and undisputed possession of the Confederates. . . .
Soon after the coaling battery was wrested from the Federals Shields’s whole line began to give back, and his army retreated in an almost routed fashion. We pursued them about five miles down the river. The track of the retiring foe was strewn with the accouterments of a discomfited army. Guns, knapsacks, overcoats, haversacks, and canteens were scattered all along the road. . . . This morning the butchering had commenced some time before we reached the shambles, and in going toward the field we passed a farmhouse that had been converted into an operating field hospital; dissecting room would be a more appropriate name, for as we passed the house I saw a subject on the kitchen table, on whom the surgeons were practicing their skillful severing operations. They tossed a man’s foot out of the window just as we passed.
The star of Stonewall Jackson’s fame as a brilliant strategist is growing brighter day by day. It has already won a worthy setting in the dazzling galaxy that flashes with martial splendor around the hero of Austerlitz. In the last month he, by quick and strategic movements, forced marches, deceptive maneuvering, and effectual fighting, has defeated and discomfited four Yankee generals — Milroy at McDowell, Banks at Winchester,— which was a perfect rout that landed Banks in Maryland and cast a tremor of fear over the Department of War at Washington — Fremont at Cross Keys; and to-day Shields, the ablest and most skillful of the four, was struck by lightning that flashed from the little faded cap, on the field at Port Republic.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=June+9%2C+1862
4. Tuesday, June 9, 1863: Stevensburg, Virginia - Col. Alfred N. Duffie and his Union force was ordered to go to Stevensburg while the rest of the army united at Brandy Station, where the open fields would allow the Union cavalry room to operate more freely. When he arrived at Stevensburg, he encountered a Confederate force, being comprised of the 2nd South Carolina Cavalry and the 4th Virginia Cavalry. This skirmish would delay Duffie from reuniting with the main Union force. The Federals were able to drive off the Confederates after a short time.
http://www.mycivilwar.com/battles/1863s.html
5. Tuesday, June 9, 1863: Battle of Brandy Station, Virginia. Confederate artilleryman Sergeant George Michael Neese, of Chew’s Battery at Brandy Station, writes in his journal some of his memories and impressions of the battle: “ We had another grand military display to-day, of a very distinctly different kind from those of a few days ago, however, but not far from the same field. This time the Yanks played a very conspicuous part in it, and there were no friendly charges in it nor sham battle business with blank cartridges, but plenty of bullets, bloody sabers, and screaming shell. West Pointers may know all about the theoretical probabilities and concomitant intricacies of war, but I think that for the last few nights the horse artillery has been permitted to roost a little too near the lion’s lair. As an evidence of that fact, early this morning the Yankees gathered in all the household and kitchen furniture, as well as some of the personal effects, belonging to our major, and came very near capturing some of the horse artillerymen in bed. . . . Soon after our cavalry fell back into the field the Yankee cavalry made a charge from the woods into the open field. Our courageous cavalry gallantly withstood the enemy’s first determined charge, and the field in front of the woods was covered with a mingled mass, fighting and struggling with pistol and saber like maddened savages.
At that juncture of the fray the warlike scene was fascinatingly grand beyond description, and such as can be produced and acted only by an actual and real combat. Hundreds of glittering sabers instantly leaped from their scabbards, gleamed and flashed in the morning sun, then clashed with metallic ring, searching for human blood, while hundreds of little puffs of white smoke gracefully rose through the balmy June air from discharging firearms all over the field in front of our batteries.
During the first charge in the early morn the artillerymen stood in silent awe gazing on the struggling mass in our immediate front, yet every man was at his post and ready for action at a moment’s notice; and as soon as our cavalry repulsed the enemy and drove them back into the woods, sixteen pieces of our horse artillery opened fire on the woods with a crash and sullen roar that made the morning air tremble and filled the woods with howling shell. . . . Stirring incidents and exciting events followed one another in quick succession, and no sooner was the enemy dislodged in our rear, than a heavy force that had been fighting us all morning advanced on our front, with cavalry and artillery. Their batteries at once opened a severe fire on our position, to which we immediately replied. Then the hardest and liveliest part of the artillery fighting commenced in earnest, and the thunder of the guns roared fiercely and incessantly for several hours.
At one time the Yankee gunners had such perfect range and distance of our position that their shrapnel shell exploded right over our guns, and two or three times I heard the slugs from the exploding shell strike my gun like a shower of iron hail. One shell exploded fearfully close to me and seriously wounded two of my cannoneers and raked the sod all around me. For about three long hours whizzing shot, howling shell, exploding shrapnel, and screaming fragments filled the air that hung over Fleetwood Heights with the music of war. . . .
We were on the field twelve hours, and during that time I fired my faithful gun one hundred and sixty times. This evening just before the battle closed, with the last few shots we fired I saw the fire flash from the cascabel of my gun, and I found that it was disabled forever — burnt entirely out at the breach. . .”
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=June+9%2C+1863
6. Tuesday, June 9, 1863: Battle of Brandy Station, Virginia. Union cavalry attacked General Stuart’s cavalry force near Brandy Station. Some 22,000 men fought here – the largest cavalry clash of the war. Both sides were evenly matched and the Union force, commanded by Pleasonton, nearly defeated Stuart’s men but news of advancing Confederate infantry convinced Pleasonton that withdrawal was his best option rather than continuing the fight. Stuart’s men had a high reputation among Pleasonton’s men, so this near victory did a great deal to boost Union morale, especially among the cavalry.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/the-american-civil-war/american-civil-war-june-1863/
7. Thursday, June 9, 1864 --- A Union force strikes back at Mount Sterling, Kentucky, and drives Morgan and his raiders out in a rout.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=June+9%2C+1864
8. Thursday, June 9, 1864 --- Gen. Sherman issues orders to his three columns---McPherson, Thomas, and Schofield---to take three parallel routes south with the aim of converging upon Marietta, where Joseph Johnston and Army of Tennessee await
them.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=June+9%2C+1864

A Monday, June 9, 1862: Battle of Port Republic, Virginia. Leaving a brigade to protect against action by Fremont, Richard S. Ewell [CS] crosses the Shenandoah in support of CSA Maj Gen Thomas Stonewall Jackson in his action against James Shields [US], resulting in a Confederate victory
http://blueandgraytrail.com/year/186206
A Monday, June 9, 1862: Battle of Port Republic, Virginia. Stonewall" Jackson’s Shenandoah Valley campaign achieved improbable success in the early summer of 1862. In early June, he led his small army to the town of Port Republic, only a few days ahead of two pursuing Union armies. From Port Republic, he could escape the valley and return to Richmond a hero. Jackson, however, could not pass on a chance to defeat the Union columns in detail as they approached, one on either side of the South Fork of the Shenandoah River. On June 8, Jackson’s men dealt a severe blow to Maj. Gen. John C. Fremont's Yankees at Cross Keys, on the west side of the fork.
That same day, Union cavalry crossed over from the east side of the fork and raided Jackson’s headquarters at Port Republic. In a brief skirmish the Yankees nearly captured Jackson and, for a time, controlled the vital North Bridge over the South Fork. The arrival of the 37th Virginia drove the Yankees from the village, leaving Jackson in possession of Port Republic and its river crossing.
The Federals—the lead element of Brig. Gen. James Shields' division, temporarily commanded by Brig. Gen. Erastus B. Tyler—established a strong defensive position along the Lewiston Lane. Their right rested on the river and extended along the Lewiston Lane toward the River Road, where their left was anchored on a high knoll called the Coaling. Tyler judiciously placed his artillery here, giving the Yankee gunners command of nearly their entire front which consisted primarily of an open field between the River Road and the South Fork. With Fremont cowed, Jackson made plans to attack and destroy this second column.
Just after 5:00am on June 9, Brig. Gen. Charles Winder led the famed "Stonewall" Brigade in an attack against Tyler’s position. Artillery rounds from the Coaling tore into Winder's men advancing across the open plain, driving them back, with Yankee infantry in hot pursuit. Though Jackson outnumbered Tyler on paper, Confederate reinforcements were slowed considerably by a bottleneck at the North Bridge.
The situation east of the River Road was entirely different. Thick woods shielded the Southerners' approach, allowing the 2nd and 4th Virginia to advance directly upon the Union gunners at the Coaling. The Virginians seized control of Tyler’s artillery platform only to be confronted by an onslaught of Federal infantry. After a vicious hand-to-hand struggle, the Confederates were forced to relinquish control of the guns while they waited for their own reinforcements. When help finally arrived in the form of Brig. Gen. Richard Taylor's Louisiana brigade, the Southerners again charged the Coaling, this time taking it in flank. This was too much for Tyler's men, who hastily fled down the reverse slope. With the Yankee artillery position firmly in Confederate hands, the whole of Tyler's line collapsed and withdrew in confusion.
With the two Federal wings now cut off from one another, the Yankees withdrew north through the Valley. After three weeks of marching and fighting, Jackson had neutralized the Union threat in the Shenandoah for the foreseeable future.
With the two Federal wings now cut off from one another, the Yankees withdrew north through the Valley. After three weeks of marching and fighting, Jackson had neutralized the Union threat in the Shenandoah for the foreseeable future.
http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/port-republic.html?tab=facts
A+ Monday, June 9, 1862 --- Battle of Port Republic, Virginia [Shenandoah Valley Campaign] Port Republic itself lies in the junction of the North and South Rivers, which combine to form the South Fork of the Shenandoah River; the bridges run through the town. The Union brigades of Samuel Carroll and Erastus Tyler are advancing to threaten the crossings. The rest of Shields’ division is still strung out along the road from the Luray Valley. Jackson proposes to strike before Shields can bring up the rest of his division. After blunting Fremont’s intended advance at Cross Keys yesterday, Gen. Richard Ewell hustles his division five miles south to Port Republic, where Gen. Jackson has the rivers to help him keep Gen. Shields’ eager Federals at bay. Trimble’s brigade and part of Patton’s brigade are left at Cross Keys to keep an eye on Fremont, while Jackson moves Winder’s Stonewall Brigade across the South River to prepare to take on the Federals. At about 5 A.M., Winder forms a line of battle, and sends two regiments to the far right to contest the Union left flank anchored on The Coaling, a steep hill where the Federals have posted their artillery. Jackson is surprised to find the Federals so close, but orders forward the attack anyway. To the rear, Richard Taylor’s brigade has arrived and crossed the river, but lacks orders. He finally moves his men forward as he hears the artillery. Jackson throws Taylor in on the right to find a way to the Coaling. Winder orders his brigade forward in a charge: within 200 yards of the Union line, the Stonewall Brigade uses rail fence for cover and begins a torrid rifle firefight with Carroll’s brigade. After suffering big losses, Winder pulls his brigade back in retreat half a mile, short on ammunition. Jackson orders Trimble and Patton to leave Cross Keys, march down, cross the bridges, and burn them. Then Gen. Ewell arrives with several regiments, and moves them to the right, following Taylor.
As Carroll’s Yankees advance to follow up Winder’s retreat, Ewell wheels his troops sharply left, and strikes Carroll in the flank as he goes by. The Union attack collapses, and Carroll retreats. Meanwhile, Taylor has finally found a way through the heavy foliage to deploy his brigade to attack the Coaling. He pushes his regiments up the hill, where they drive Tyler’s troops off the hill and capture 5 Union cannon. Tyler rallies his bluecoats and attempts to re-take the hill. The Federals take the summit in hand-to-hand fighting, but Taylor sends a regiment to the right to flank the Federals, and the Rebels turn the 5 guns on the Yankees. Gen. Ewell shows up with several reserve regiments from Walker’s brigade to bolster Taylor, and they press the attack, driving the bluecoats off the hill. Then Winder launches another attack, reinforced by all the reserves Jackson can put in. Taliaferro’s brigade arrives, and presses forward to aid Winder, and pursues the Federals, now in full retreat, capturing several hundred prisoners. As Fremont arrives on the north side of the river, he cannot cross and cannot do more than annoy the Confederates with his artillery. The fighting is mostly over by 12 noon. Confederate Victory.
Losses: Killed Wounded Missing & Captured
Union 67 361 574
Confederate 88 535 34
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=June+9%2C+1862
B Tuesday, June 9, 1863: Battle of Brandy Station, Virginia. Largest cavalry battle on American soil pitted Alfred Pleasonton [US] Tuesday, June 9, 1863: against Jeb Stuart [CS].
http://blueandgraytrail.com/year/186306
B+ Tuesday, June 9, 1863 --- Battle of Brandy Station, Virginia. Ends in a Stalemate. The largest cavalry battle in the war, the fight at Brandy Station catches Stuart’s Southern cavaliers unprepared, and scattered in six separate encampments, after the festivities of the previous day, and the Grand Review of the cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia. Stuart commands 9,500 men, and they are almost all here. Two Union columns of cavalry, supported by a couple of brigades of infantry, cross the Rappahannock at Beverly and Kelly’s Fords. On the Union side, Gen. Alfred Pleasonton commands the divisions of Duffie, Gregg, and Buford, with some infantry support: in all, about 11,000 men. Buford’s column, which Pleasonton is riding with, has Buford’s division, plus a reserve brigade under Maj. Charles Whiting, and a brigade of infantry from the V Corps, under Brig. Gen. Adelbert Ames. Gregg’s column is made up of his own division, Col. Alfred Duffie’s division, and a brigade of infantry under Brig. Gen. Russell. Buford’s column crosses first, and catches the Rebels by surprise at Fleetwood Hill, and wide, flat-topped eminence just southwest of Beverly Ford.
Buford’s column quickly kills or disperses the Rebel cavalry pickets at the river and splashes across. The alarm spreads quickly, and by the time Buford deploys, the Confederate Brigades of Jones, Rooney Lee, and Hampton have arrived, many of them undressed and riding bareback; reinforced with artillery, the Rebels form a line on Fleetwood Hill. As Buford strikes the left of this line, Lee’s dismounted troopers take shelter behind a wall, and inflict heavy casualties on the Federals as a murderous firefight develops with carbines. Col. Benjamin Davis, commanding that Federal brigade, is killed outright. The Rebel horse artillery is near St. James Church, and a gallant and costly horseback charge by the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry fails to dislodge it.
At about this time, Gregg’s column crosses the river, finding only one brigade, under Beverly Robertson, opposing them. Gregg swings his troopers out to the left, avoiding Robertson, and heads west for Stevensburg and Culpeper, leaving Russell’s infantry to push back at Robertson. Duffie continues on this route, but Gregg takes his division north to threaten Stuart’s left flank. As Gregg arrives with Col. Percy Wyndham’s brigade, and later as Col. Judson Kilpatrick’s brigade lines up on Wyndham’s right, only then do the Confederates realize that their rear is in jeopardy.
Buford’s men finally dislodge Lee’s troopers just as the entire Confederate line has to pull back. But counterattacks on Gregg by the Rebels prevent his advancing. As Wyndham is delayed by Chew’s Battery, his brigade finally sweeps up Fleetwood Hill to find Grumble Jones’ Rebels counterattacking; and as Kilpatrick moves up, he finds Hampton’s Carolinians about-facing to take them on. Soon, the battle is in full swing, with several series of charges and countercharges, and fighting with pistol and saber. The crest of the hill, particularly Yew Ridge, changes hands several times.
On the Confederate left, Rooney Lee leads a charge to stop Buford again, and gets a bullet through his thigh in the action. But Stuart is firming up his line on the hill, and countercharges drive the Yankees back from Brandy Station.
Pleasonton decides that his troops have given (and taken) enough punishment, and withdraws towards the fords. The battle is a marginal Confederate victory, Stuart argues, since he still holds the hill, and the Yankees withdraw, but the Southern newspapers blame Stuart for allowing the Yankees for stealing a march on him, and for successfully hitting him with two surprise attacks. An infantry officer confides: ". . . Stuart is blamed very much, but whether or not fairly I am not sufficiently informed to say." The Yankees all consider this a Union victory since, for the first time, Northern cavalrymen have held their own with the Southerners in a pitched battle, and hurt them badly. Stalemate.
Losses: Union, 907 Confederate, 527
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=June+9%2C+1863
B++ Tuesday, June 9, 1863: Battle of Brandy Station, Virginia. Following the Confederate victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May of 1863, the two great eastern armies found themselves once more confronting each other along the line of Virginia’s Rappahannock River. Never one to forfeit the initiative, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee resolved to take the war once again onto Northern soil.
Beginning June 3, the Army of Northern Virginia marched west from Fredericksburg towards Culpeper Court House, on its way to the protection of the Shenandoah Valley. Lee ordered Gen. J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry to screen this movement, keeping the southern bank of the Rappahannock free of Union scouts. By June 8, roughly 9,500 of Stuart’s cavalrymen were concentrated at Brandy Station, a small crossroads roughly halfway between Culpeper and the Rappahannock. In preparation for his pivot northward, Lee directed Stuart to launch a diversionary raid across the river the next day, June 9.
Gen. Joseph Hooker, commanding the Union Army of the Potomac, correctly interpreted Stuart’s intentions. Redeploying his own cavalry opposite Brandy Station, he too ordered an attack for June 9. After the perceived failure of the mounted wing during the Chancellorsville Campaign, Hooker’s orders were plain: "disperse or destroy" Stuart’s entire command. Cavalry commander Gen. Alfred Pleasanton accordingly augmented his striking force with an ad hoc infantry brigade, bringing his strength to nearly 12,000 men. Stuart remained unaware of this rapid build-up of strength to his front. Pleasanton’s plan had called for a coordinated double attack by Gen. John Buford’s troopers at Beverly’s Ford and a force under Gen. David Gregg further south at Kelly’s Ford.
At 4:30 A.M., Buford’s men splashed across Beverly’s Ford, four and a half miles northeast of Brandy Station, and quickly scattered surprised Confederate pickets. Firing their revolvers wildly, the pickets scrambled back towards the main camp near St. James Church, along the direct road to Brandy Station from Beverly’s Ford. Bleary-eyed Confederates at St. James Church hurled themselves into the fray and managed to stall Buford’s advance, claiming the life of Buford’s lead subordinate, Col. Benjamin "Grimes" Davis.
Stuart's horsemen suffered heavily, but bought enough time for their artillery to deploy and open a murderous fire on the congested Union column from the high ground around the church. His position in peril, Buford ordered a desperate charge on the Confederate battery. The 6th Pennsylvania led the assault with the 6th U.S. close behind. Undeterred by the canister and shrapnel scything through their ranks, the Union horsemen overran the guns before Brig. Gen. "Grumble" Jones's Confederates repulsed them.
With the guns back in action, Buford now sought to reach them by moving around the Confederate left flank on Yew Ridge. Dismounted Confederate troopers repulsed repeated attacks from behind a stone wall before being dislodged at around noon.
Meanwhile, delays were plaguing Gen. David Gregg’s Federal horsemen at Kelly’s Ford. Gregg’s scouted alerted him of the presence of Confederates in his front, prompting the Pennsylvanian to make a wide march around the enemy. It was 11:30 A.M. before Gregg reached Brandy Station, but he was now firmly in the Confederate rear.
Gregg’s path to St. James Church was blocked by Fleetwood Hill, a broad elevation where J.E.B. Stuart had established his headquarters. Union artillery opened on Fleetwood Hill, giving a considerable shock to Stuart, whose main force was entirely committed to the battle in his front. Gregg’s preparatory barrage, however, gave Stuart time to pull troops back to Fleetwood Hill to meet the first Union charge. Meanwhile, Confederates withdrawing from Yew Ridge were still holding Buford’s tired troopers at bay, allowing Stuart to shuffle more troops to face Gregg. The opposing lines crashed into one another again and again for almost five hours. Finally, hearing reports of incoming Confederate reinforcements, Pleasanton decided to withdraw at 5 P.M. Stuart did not pursue.
Although Pleasanton failed to destroy Stuart’s command, the hard fighting at Brandy Station definitively proved the fighting prowess of the much-maligned Northern horsemen—in the words of Stuart's own aide, "Brandy Station made the Federal cavalry." Stuart, for his part, was denounced in the Southern press for allowing himself to be surprised and very nearly destroyed on his own soil. Nevertheless, the Confederate infantry remained undetected, and continued the march that would eventually reach Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/brandy-station.html?tab=facts
C Thursday, June 9, 1864 --- A force of Federals under Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler try a half-hearted attack on Petersburg, Virginia, in an attempt to undermine Lee’s position around Richmond. His 4,500 men are beaten off by Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard’s 2,500 men. Butler decides not to try again.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=June+9%2C+1864
C+ Thursday, June 9, 1864: Engagement at Petersburg, VA, as Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, CSA, throws back Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler’s, USA, feeble attempt to capture Petersburg, VA.
http://www.beyondthecrater.com/resources/tipc/june-1864/june-9-1864/
C++ Thursday, June 9, 1864: Battle of Old Men and Young Boys at Petersburg, Virginia.
Background On May 5, 1864, Butler's Army of the James landed at Bermuda Hundred and City Point on the James River, ten miles east of Petersburg. His charge was to disrupt rail lines and harass the Confederates south of Richmond while Grant and George G. Meade initiated the Overland Campaign by attacking Robert E. Lee's army to the north. While the Union forces suffered horrific casualties at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, North Anna River, and, at the end of the month, Cold Harbor, Butler's force was halted at Drewry's Bluff.
Undeterred, Butler cast his eye on Petersburg. The city served as an important transportation hub, where four railroads converged into the main line of the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad; its capture would be a blow to Lee's ability to defend the capital and would deny him easy access to supplies and reinforcements. A captured Confederate map and intelligence provided by runaway slaves and deserters suggested to Butler that Petersburg was not well defended. Confederate generals P. G. T. Beauregard and Henry A. Wise commanded a mere 2,200 militiamen in Petersburg proper while the rest of their meager force blocked Butler's way at Bermuda Hundred. These 2,200 defenders, meanwhile, were not all Confederate regulars, but included a motley assortment of "greyhaired men, and beardless boys," as one Petersburg citizen described them. Some were veterans, but others were dentists and business owners and men who had been exempt from military service because of age or infirmity; some did not even have working rifles.
Butler was an ambitious Massachusetts politician who kept alert for opportunities at personal glory, and in Petersburg he spied a headline-worthy prize. When Grant stalled at Cold Harbor, there was talk that Union forces might shift south toward Petersburg. The time to act, in other words, was now, before he would be forced to share his glory. Butler planned the attack for June 9 and placed Quincy A. Gillmore in charge of the expedition. Gillmore, who the year before had overseen the 54th Massachusetts's famous but failed assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, was blamed by Butler for the setback at Drewry's Bluff. And as he set off for Petersburg with 3,400 infantrymen, including United States Colored Troops, and 1,300 cavalry troopers under the German-born August V. Kautz, he did not enjoy his commanding general's full confidence.
The Battle Gillmore's orders were to storm Petersburg, destroy its bridges, and return to Bermuda Hundred. Several miles from the city, tired from a night march and already behind schedule, his force split into three columns. Two brigades of infantry approached Petersburg from the east, while Kautz's cavalry swung to the south. At about seven in the morning, the foot soldiers ran into Confederate pickets, who slowly withdrew to Petersburg's main defenses a mile outside of the city. These fortifications, called the Dimmock Line, ran in a ten-mile arc from the Appomattox River on the north all the way to the South Side Railroad and the Appomattox River again west of the city. Laid out beginning in August 1862 by Confederate general D. H. Hill, they were guarded by some fifty-five artillery batteries that had fallen into disrepair. Nevertheless, Gillmore approached cautiously and failed to press hard, mistakenly assuming the works were heavily defended.
By nine o'clock, the alarm had gone up in Petersburg—"all the available bell metal in the corporation broke into chorus with so vigorous a peal and clangor … as to suggest to the uninitiated a general conflagration," one of the city's residents recalled—and Wise immediately deployed the thousand or so men he had at hand while requesting reinforcements from Beauregard. After demonstrating in front of the fortifications for several hours, Gillmore pulled his troops back. To the south, meanwhile, in front of Batteries 27 and 28, Kautz encountered Fletcher H. Archer's Battalion of Virginia Reserves. The unit of 125 soldiers included a 59-year-old bank officer, three members of the city council, and a mill manager who had been up all night guarding prisoners. Archer, a veteran of the Mexican War (1846–1848), later described "heads silvered o'er with the frosts of advancing years," while noting that others of his men scarcely deserved to be called men at all, unable to "boast of the down upon the cheek."
Kautz improvised a charge at 11:30, but his Pennsylvania troopers were repelled. He then carefully deployed his full force, most of which had since dismounted, and attacked again, but Archer's men still managed to hold them off for nearly two hours. They were helped in their effort by local slaves who played music to simulate the arrival of Confederate reinforcements. By the time Union troops finally broke through, actual reinforcements had arrived. They met one column of Kautz's cavalry while a scratch force of what one witness described as "patients and penitents"—hospital patients and jail inmates—met the other. Kautz, hearing only silence from Gillmore's front, and facing the possibility of increased resistance, broke off the action and retreated to Bermuda Hundred.
Aftermath The Petersburg militia paid a heavy price in slowing the Union raid: 15 dead (including the bank manager), 18 wounded, and 42 captured. Gillmore lost 46 killed and wounded, and 6 missing; more than that, though, he fumbled an unprecedented opportunity to capture the Cockade City. Grant shifted the Army of the Potomac south the following week, arriving at Petersburg on June 15. But the Confederates, alerted to the city's vulnerability, had by then begun to reinforce its defenses, although they were still unprepared for Grant's flank attack and surprise move on Petersburg. Still, it took Grant nearly ten months finally to crack the city open. Once he did, on April 2, 1865, the war was effectively over a week later.
On June 9, 1866, the city of Petersburg began an annual commemoration of the militia's victory. The ceremony, organized by a local Ladies' Memorial Association, served as a precursor to Confederate Memorial Day.
http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Old_Men_and_Young_Boys_Battle_of_June_9_1864
C+++ Thursday, June 9, 1864: Engagement at Petersburg, VA. Approximately 125 men of the Petersburg militia under the command of Major Fletcher Archer held off an attack of 1300 Union Cavalry under the command of General Augustus Kautz for more than two hours. A large number of the defenders were armed with vintage War of 1812 muskets. Three hundred of the Union attackers were armed with 15 shot repeating rifles.
Their heroic sacrifice gave Captain Edward Graham, along with some veteran infantry and the 4th North Carolina Cavalry commanded by Colonel Dennis D. Ferebee who were hastily summoned from across the Appomattox river, time to position his battery of artillery on Reservoir Hill and stop the Union advance up the new road off Jerusalem Plank Road. Riding with them was Brigadier General James Dearing. These horsemen, and Graham's cannoneers, represented all the help that General Beauregard was able to send in response to the urgent requests for reinforcements.
The battle ended in the early afternoon. In the still, warm June evening ambulances and wagons delivered the dead to the doors of their homes. Two days later there were funerals all day, with processions moving at intervals from different homes and churches. It was General Butler himself who wrote that Petersburg was defended by "old men and boys, the grave and the cradle being robbed in about equal proportions."
Fifteen of the civilians who had been rushed to arms were killed, eighteen were wounded, and another forty-five captured. Petersburg had been saved, but, in the words of one survivor, its defense had demanded "an extraordinary sacrifice of life and blood."
It is often referred to as "The Battle of Old Men and young Boys" as most every man fit for military service was gone from the City of Petersburg leaving only the old, the too young and the sick to defend the city.
Because they had borne the brunt of the assault and had suffered nearly sixty percent casualties, Archer's battalion was singled out for a special commendation. Amidst all the pain and bereavement in the Cockade City, it soon became apparent that all segments of Petersburg's population had taken part in the great victory. Not only had old men and young boys, patients, and penitents, regulars and novices helped to defend the city, but slaves and free blacks had contributed as well.
Philip Slaughter, a black musician, had formed his small band on the heights and throughout the latter stages of the action had vigorously played "Dixie" and "The Girl I Left Behind" to boost the spirits of the defenders and to impress the enemy and also to simulate several regimental bands. Other blacks had, knowingly or not, aided in the defense by assuring the federals that 60,000 Confederate troops were near Petersburg. There is the story of a Black man who, when asked by Kautz what the fort was, replied, "Fort Water." (Reservoir Hill)
Still other slaves had furnished timely information to the defenders, keeping at least one out of the hands of the Federals. Although their role was not large, Petersburg's black residents had contributed to the success of the defense. June 9, 1864 was indeed a community victory.
http://www.craterroad.com/9junebattle.html
FYI SPC Michael Duricko, Ph.D MAJ Roland McDonald SSG Franklin BriantCPO William Glen (W.G.) Powell1stSgt Eugene Harless PO3 (Join to see)MSG Greg Kelly CPT (Join to see) LTC John Griscom LTC Thomas Tennant SPC Robert Treat GySgt Wayne A. Ekblad GySgt Jack Wallace PO1 Sam Deel LTC David Brown LTC (Join to see) SFC Eric Harmon SSG Bill McCoySPC (Join to see) Kim Bolen RN CCM ACM

The story about the Old Men and Boys was interesting. The South's White Population was roughly 5.5 million people. Statisically speaking, roughly 10% of a countries population are Males who are of the appropriate age and fit to bear Arms.
That means the CSA should have had, at most, about 550,000 men serve. The numbers attributed range up to about 1.25 million, although it includes reserves, militias and home guard. So about 1 out of 3 males served. It has to be noted that the total number of males incluse those of all ages, from infants to 80 year olds, as well as those who were physically or mentally disabled.
In Contrast The North had a population of 18.5 million and had 2.6 million men take up arms.
The Union Army had over 3 times the population of the South, yet only fielded twice as many men. In essense they could have fielded another 1 million men.
Ive read accounts when BOTH Armies marched Through Pa during the Gettysburg Campaign they were amazed at the number of fit young mebn who were not in the service. The Union Troops were bitter that the "stay at homes" were not doing their part and the Southerners becamed disheartened as it became apparent that the Yankees still had many more men to send into the war, In ther south the only Males left were boys under 16, codgers over 60 and the maimed.

Great read LTC Stephen F.