The failure of the Federals to accomplish anything in the neighborhood of Richmond in early July was one of the wasted opportunities of the war. When Lee invaded Pennsylvania, there were left behind two brigades in the vicintiy of Petersburg and Richmond to defend those points and the railroad north. General Erasmus Keyes with his entire corps landed his men at the White House, at the head of navigation on the Pamunkey, at the end of June. While Getty, with a force as large as 12,000 men, headed northwest toward the vital railroad bridges over the north and South Anna Rivers, Keyes himself with a reinforced division headed west along the line of the York River Railroad to direclty threaten Richmond.

D. H. Hill, commanding the Department of North Carolian and Southern Virginia, rushed up what few troops he could spare. The two brigades of Micah Jenkins and Robvert Ransom headed out from Richmond to counter Keyes' direct threat. His utter failure is best described by John C. Ropes, a Massachusetts solsier left behind at the White House, when he wrote to his mother on July 3: Keyes, he said, "got frightened ... fell back, a mile, and ... was attacked by some rebels,, he got scared again..." and fell back. The truth was that the skirmishers of Jenkins brigade when they advanced caused Keyes to decamp and fall back rapidly (although he had more than a two to one superiority in numbers). Total Confederate losses appear to be one killed, one mortally wounded, and one wounded not mortally.

Meanwhile, Getty's expedition into Hanover County amounted to nothing more than a long march and plundering expedition. Confederater reserve artillery and troops of Colquitt's brigade, up from North Carolina, demonstrated so vigorously that Getty never reached either of the two bridges, his stated objective.

The historian of the 15th Connecticut wrote that the failure caused his regiment to "hang its head in humiliation." The Federals had as many as 30,000 men in the expedition, and accomplished virtually nothing, except some incidental plunder. The fiasco ended Keyes' career as a field officer, as well it should have.