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The Key To Taking Richmond Is Petersburg

That's what General Grant believed when his forces began arriving at the eastern environs of the city in mid-June 1864. It was the four railroad lines and key roadways that made Petersburg important. If these could be cut, then the city could no longer provide Richmond with much-needed supplies, equipment, and subsistence. Many believed that if Richmond fell, the war would beaver. Others, however, like Grant, knew that only when Lee's army was eliminated would the war come to an end.

By summer of 1864 the most important city in Virginia after Richmond was Petersburg, twenty-three miles south of the Confederate capital. All but one railroad bringing supplies to Richmond and the Army of Northern Virginia from the South passed through Petersburg; five lines in all, radiating in all directions, including the Richmond & Petersburg Railroad linking the two cities. The city on the Appomattox River was a transportation hub not only because of the railroads, but also because a similar array of roads entered from all directions, including two plank roads.

The Confederate leadership recognized the strategic importance of Petersburg while McClellan's Army of the Potomac threatened Richmond from the east. Work began on a perimeter of fortifications even as McClellan's army hunkered down in its Harrison's Landing encampment in July 1862. The line guarding approaches to the city had a ten- mile perimeter, anchored east and west on the Appomattox, known as the "Dimmock line," after Capt. Charles H. Dimmock, the engineer in charge of the year-long construction. The Dimmock line included 55 artillery batteries but an insufficient number of men to defend it, even after Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard assumed command of the defense of southside Virginia and Petersburg in May 1864.

The initial Federal assault on Petersburg did not come from Lt. Gen. U. S. Grant and the Army of the Potomac, then battling Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia northeast of Richmond, but from the Army of the James under Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler. Despite Beauregard successfully outfoxing Butler, which resulted in the Army of the James being bottled up on the Bermuda Hundred peninsula, raids on the railroads north and south of Petersburg were launched, tying up Southern forces in guarding and repairing the lines. On June 9, Butler's forces advancing in two columns attacked the Dimmock line east of Petersburg. The infantry demonstrated while Brig. Gen. August V. Kautz's cavalry stormed Battery 29 guarding the Jerusalem Plank Road and thundered ahead until checked and turned back by home guards in the fight called the "battle of old men and young boys" by Petersburgers. The attack revealed the weaknesses of the Petersburg defenses and helped Grant formulate his next move.

As Grant began to march southward again after the Battle of Cold Harbor, he succeeded in confusing Lee as to his plans. Much of Lee's cavalry force was pursuing Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan's cavalry corps northwest of Richmond (see Trevilian Station) and Grant on June 13 undertook a diversion by the V Corps spearheaded by Brig. Gen. James H. Wilson's cavalry at Glendale, south of the Chickahominy, to mask his movement across the James River. This commotion allowed Grant to slip around Lee's army, holding closely to forts and fortifications around Richmond, and drive on his new objective, Petersburg. Grant first sent the XVIII Corps, under Maj. Gen. William E "Baldy" Smith, across the Appomattox River on a pontoon bridge at Broadway Landing on June 15. At the same time, the Army of the Potomac was crossing the James River farther east.

The attack on the Dimmock line began about seven P.M. on June 15. Smith's men captured Batteries 5 through 11 from Beauregard's 4,000 defenders, but Smith then hesitated. By the time Hancock's Union II Corps arrived to back him up, Rebel infantry were streaming south from Drewry's Bluff to stiffen the defense. Batteries 4 and 12 through 14 were captured in attacks on June 16 and 17 but new Rebel trenches closer to the city were sited and dug in the early-morning hours of June 18 as Lee arrived with most of his force. With 90,000 men across the James, Grant launched a massive assault on the Confederates on June 18. The Rebels pulled back to the new line of fortifications and held off the assaults until darkness halted the action.

Grant's force had cut two railroads in to Petersburg and gained control of several important roads, but the four-day assault was costly—more than 10,000 Federal casualties were tallied. Grant was left with no choice but to commence siege operations at Petersburg, though officially siege operations were not ordered until July 9. At the same time Grant continued to look for ways to break the Rebels' contact with their sources of supply. The Federals began to strengthen and fortify the positions captured in the initial assaults. At the same time, thrusts were made to the southwest to continue to cut railroads and roads into Petersburg. The Union probe toward the Petersburg & Weldon Railroad, known in reports in its abbreviated form, the Weldon Railroad, on June 22-23 was halted by two Confederate divisions, but the Jerusalem Plank Road fell to the Northerners and raiding Yankee cavalry pulled up and twisted track on the railroad. The Weldon Railroad would continue to be the focus of Federal attempts to encircle Petersburg and cut off supplies to the Southerners.

The developing stalemate of the siege of Petersburg was broken once during the month of July 1864. The 48th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment of Burnside's IX Corps, former coal miners, began to drift a gallery under the Rebel works. The design was conceived by their commander, Lt. Col. Henry Pleasants, a brilliant engineer. He developed a unique ventilating system that allowed the gallery to extend more than 500 feet and form a T-shape directly under the Confederate works at Elliott's (Pegram's) Salient. Four tons of black powder were placed in barrels at the end of the mine. After the explosion, Burnside's infantry was to rush toward the crater formed by the blast and fan out on either side, rolling back the Confederates holding the works north and south of the crater, and then lunge west and seize the high ground overlooking Petersburg. The attack was preceded by a demonstration at Deep Bottom, north of the James, by General Hancock, to draw more Rebel troops from Petersburg, and a furious cannonade along the line. The Confederates were suspicious that a gallery was being dug, but believing one could not be extended more than 400 feet, were digging in the wrong places to uncover it.

A critical flaw arose in the plan when Meade and Grant discovered that the troops Burnside was drilling to lead the assault were the black soldiers of Brig. Gen. Edward Ferrero's division. Fearing the political turmoil that would be caused by appearing to sacrifice African-American soldiers if the plan failed, Meade and Grant ordered Burnside to have one of his three white divisions spearhead the attack. After the division commanders drew straws, the lead fell to the division of Brig. Gen. James H. Ledlie, an officer with political connections whose most noteworthy trait was taking to the bottle in pressure situations.

The assault was planned for the predawn hours of July 30. The long fuse was lit, but nothing happened. Two 48th Pennsylvania Volunteers crawled into the gallery, respliced the fuse, and at four-forty in the morning, the earth shook. The blast sent a shock wave across the trenches at Petersburg; dirt clogs as large as houses were thrown into the air; 286 Confederates were immediately killed or wounded. But confusion reigned among Ledlie's men as they charged the crater while their division commander remained behind, allegedly drinking. They gawked at the destruction in the crater rather than fanning out as Ferrero's division had been trained to do. As the other three divisions pressed forward, the Confederates regained their composure and began firing mortar shells into the mob stalled in the crater. Rebel general, Petersburg resident William "Billy" Mahone, although small in stature, was a giant on this day as he masterminded a series of slashing counterattacks that spelled disaster for the Federals.

Despite heroics by Ferrero's division (Ferrero himself remained behind in the bombproof with Ledlie), the Battle of the Crater turned into a tragic reverse for the Army of the Potomac. As a result, Burnside was relieved of command, Ledlie was forced to resign from the army, and Ferrero, through an oversight, was merely assigned to an unimportant command. Grant never again used a mine as a tactical weapon.

While Hancock's command demonstrated north of the James River at Deep Bottom, the Union V Corps and elements of the IX and II corps under command of Maj. Gen. G. K. Warren were withdrawn from the Petersburg entrenchments to operate against the Weldon Railroad. At dawn on August 18, Warren advanced, driving back Confederate pickets until reaching the railroad at Globe Tavern. In the afternoon, Brig. Gen. Henry Heth's division attacked, driving one of Warren's divisions back to the tavern. Both sides entrenched during the night. On August 19, Maj. Gen. William Mahone, whose division had been hastily returned from north of the James River, attacked with five infantry brigades, rolling up the right flank of Brig. Gen. Samuel W. Crawford's division. Heavily reinforced, Warren counterattacked and by nightfall had retaken most of the ground lost during the afternoon's fighting. On August 20, the Federals laid out and entrenched a strong defensive line covering the Blick House and Globe Tavern and extending east to connect with the main Federal lines at Jerusalem Plank Road. On August 21, A. P. Hill probed the new Federal line for weakness but could not penetrate the Union defenses. With the fighting at Globe Tavern, Grant succeeded in extending his siege lines to the west and cutting Petersburg's primary rail connection with Wilmington, North Carolina.

While the Confederates lost use of the Weldon Railroad into Petersburg, the line still brought supplies up from North Carolina to Stony Creek Station, thirty miles to the south, where they were redistributed into wagons for transport to Petersburg. As a result, Grant ordered destruction of the railroad track south of Globe Tavern. The task was handed to Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock's II Corps and Brig. Gen. David M. Gregg's cavalry. The once proud corps had been wracked by casualties in the spring and summer campaigns and by August numbered many inexperienced conscripts. On August 25, the Confederates led by Maj. Gen. Henry Heth surprised Hancock's people and captured more than 2,000 at Ream's Station, five miles south of Globe Tavern.

Three weeks after the Battle of Ream's Station, the Army of Northern Virginia cavalry under Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton helped relieve the Confederates' supply problems by staging a raid deep behind the Federal lines at Coggins' Point. On September 16 the Rebel horsemen surprised cavalry guarding a herd of cattle, capturing more than 300 troopers and almost 2,400 beeves, which they drove back into the Confederate lines. The impact of this spectacular raid and the Ream's Station victory were short-lived for the beleaguered Southerners. Grant ordered the westward extension of the Petersburg investment lines in late September.

On September 29, the Federals launched the third of what had become a familiar pattern of one-two punches against the Confederate lines guarding Petersburg and Richmond. In conjunction with the attack on Fort Harrison southeast of Richmond (see Chaffin's Farm—New Market Heights), the Army of the Potomac advanced on the Rebel works at Peeble's Farm west of the Globe Tavern. In three days of fighting the Federals forced the Confederates from their works along Squirrel Level Road. The Southerners successfully resisted any further gains toward the Southside Railroad, the last Confederate-controlled railroad from southside Virginia into Petersburg, but they were compelled to extend their lines three miles farther to the west to match an equal extension of Federal works. The Union soldiers constructed the largest fort at Petersburg, Fort Fisher, along this section of the line that was refused westward of the Squirrel Level Road.

On October 27, the Federals again sought to reach the Southside Railroad. Standing in their way were Confederate defenses covering the Boydton Plank Road, north of Hatcher's Run. This thrust was made in conjunction with a demonstration against the defenses of Richmond north and south of Fair Oaks by Butler's Army of the James. Meade's Federals moved forward in two columns drawn from the II and V corps, preceded by Gregg's horsemen. At Burgess's Mill, where Boydton Plank Road crossed Hatcher's Run, Han- cock's II Corps divisions were stopped by fierce Confederate resistance along the plank road and a charge by Wade Hampton's Confederate cavalry. Adding to the Northern problems was a lack of coordination between the two Federal corps commanders, Warren and Hancock, and the II Corps finding itself isolated retreated. Hancock, never having recovered from his Gettysburg wound and feeling discouraged by his inability to gain the kind of acclaim with his inexperienced soldiers that he achieved with previous commands, took sick leave, left the Army of the Potomac, and when he returned to duty, headed the Invalid Corps that helped defend Washington.

After the Battle of Burgess's Mill, there were no serious actions over the winter months. The siege settled into a pattern of picketing and sniping, with small skirmishes erupting from time to time along the nearly thirty-five miles of Confederate earthworks extending from east of Richmond to southwest of Petersburg. The Federals employed large-caliber siege guns and mortars, including the huge thirteen-inch mortar "the Dictator," to throw shells into Petersburg two miles away. The bombardment did little damage and the Confederate soldiers and citizens of Petersburg quickly adapted to living with the nuisance, much as those at Vicksburg had done eighteen months earlier.

The Last Citadel This book is the only full-length treatment of the most extensive military operation of the Civil War - the siege of Petersburg, Virginia, which by its bloody end had added more than 70,000 casualties to the war's total. It's a compelling account told largely through the words of the men and women who were there, including officers, common soldiers and the town's citizens, creating an epic story rich in human incident and adventure.

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