Carmel Church

The scattered corps of the Union army reunited here at Carmel Church (known during the war as Mount Carmel Church) on May 23 before attacking Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee across the North Anna River, approximately three miles ahead. Gen. Winfield Hancock’s Second Corps advanced down the Telegraph Road (modern Route 1) and seized the Chesterfield Bridge. The Fifth, Sixth and Ninth Corps swung west and headed towards Jericho Mills and Ox Ford.<br><br> For four days the Union and Confederate armies battled south of the river, adding 3,400 names to the already swollen casualty lists. Union Generals U.S. Grant and George Meade made their headquarters at Carmel Church during the initial stages of the battle. Unable to dent Lee’s lines, Grant pulled the Union Army back across the North Anna on the night of May 26 and marched to the Pamunkey River crossings, several miles east. The three-week campaign, already the bloodiest in American history, would go on.<br><br> <i>&#8220;We started quite early…and halted at Mt. Carmel Church…. There was something rather funny, too. For in the broad aisle they had laid across some boards and made a table, round which sat Meade, Grant, General Williams, etc., writing on little slips of paper. It looked precisely like a town-hall, where people are coming to vote, only the people had unaccountably put on very dusty uniforms.&#8221;</i><br> - Theodore Lyman, aide-de-camp to Gen. Meade.<br><br> <i>(Caption, upper right picture)</i>: From Mt. Carmel Church, Union Gen. Hancock rushed south to save the Chesterfield Bridge over the North Anna River. He was too late.<br><br> <i>(Caption, lower right picture)</i>: While Hancock moved towards Chesterfield Bridge, Warren’s corps threw a pontoon bridge across the North Anna at Jericho Ford, six miles upriver.