Beefsteak Raid The Beefsteak Raid was a Confederate cavalry raid that took place in September 1864 as part of the Siege of Petersburg during the American Civil War . Confederate Maj . Gen . Wade Hampton led a force of 3 , 000 troopers on what was to become a ride to acquire cattle that were intended for the consumption of the Union Army ( which was laying siege to Richmond and Petersburg , Virginia ) . Background . Always lacking in supplies , the Confederate forces that were defending the capital of Richmond were beginning to run out of food . A report by General Robert E . Lee on August 22 , 1864 , stated that corn to feed the Southern soldiers was exhausted . A scout , Sergeant George D . Shadburne , informed General Hampton on September 5 , 1864 , that there were 3 , 000 cattle behind Union lines , at Edmund Ruffin ' s plantation on Coggin ' s Point , five miles ( 8 km ) away from Lt . Gen . Ulysses S . Grant ' s headquarters , which were lightly defended by only 120 Union soldiers and thirty civilians . Sensing an opportunity to increase the army ' s food stores , Hampton arranged for 3 , 000 troops to follow him . Some of these men included " several certified Texas cattle thieves " . Raid . Hampton led his men to the south of the cities , behind Union lines , on September 14 . He chose to cross where the Cook ' s Bridge over the Blackwater River once stood , knowing that an attack from there would be unexpected . He had some engineers reconstruct the bridge . At 5 a . m . on September 16 , Hampton ' s force attacked with a three - prong strike , with the center directed toward the cattle . Hampton ' s force captured more than 2 , 000 cattle , along with 11 wagons and 304 prisoners , leading them back to the Confederate lines at 9 a . m . on September 17 . Aftermath . The total losses for the Confederates , who saw some opposition , were 10 killed , 47 wounded , and 4 missing . The official count of cattle successfully reaching the Confederates for food was 2 , 468 . Despite the raid ' s success , its strategic impact was not as great as the large number of cattle taken might seem to indicate . For whereas the Union had the resources to replace its lost cattle , the Confederates lacked grain to spare for feed . They were therefore forced to slaughter the cattle almost as soon as they had secured it . The ensuing " feast " on the Confederate side might be better described as a rush to consume the beef before it spoiled . For days afterwards , the southerners would taunt the northern sentries , thanking them for all the food and inviting them over for dinner . There was so much beef available that Confederate sentries would sometimes offer it in unauthorized trades with Union sentries for certain luxury items of which the Federal soldiers had a plentiful supply , but the Confederates lacked . After the beef was eaten or spoiled , the Confederates reverted to their previous , dire food situation . Abraham Lincoln called the raid " the slickest piece of cattle - stealing " he ever heard of . General Lee ' s adjutant Walter H . Taylor said it made up for the loss of the Weldon Railroad , a claim historians consider to be overstated . A fictionalized depiction of the raid is featured in the 1966 film " Alvarez Kelly " .