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(Siege of Richmond and Petersburg)

Siege of Richmond and Petersburg

In some ways the siege of Petersburg follows the pattern of all of Grant's 1864 campaign.  His objective was the destruction of Lee's army; to do this he needed to pin Lee down or outflank him.  Right from the first Grant tried to outflank Lee's right (eastern) flank, and that's what took the fighting to Petersburg.  Lee had two goals: preserve his army and protect Richmond.  Grant could count on Lee to fight for Richmond, so when he couldn't catch Lee in the open field he headed for Richmond to force a showdown.

But Grant was not stupid.  He knew what would happen if he threw his men head-on at fortifications.  Time after time, from Vicksburg to Spotsylvania to Cold Harbor the results had been horrific casualties.  He licked his wounds after Cold Harbor and then moved quickly.

It was another left hook, this time southwards behind Ben Butler's Army of the James (bottled up at Bermuda Hundred, where the inept Butler was stuck) and east of Petersburg.  It was a risky move, since he was moving across Lee's front and crossing a major river (the James was over 2,000 feet wide at Weyanoke) with the enemy in his rear.  But Lee for once didn't scent the enemy movement; throughout the war he'd had remarkable success at anticipating Union moves but not this time.  He started on June 12, 1864, and within two days his four corps were at the bridge site, and in another two days all the men were over.  In eight hours the US engineers had built a pontoon bridge over 2,100 feet long over a river with a 4-foot tide and build roads to each end of the bridge.

The goal was Petersburg, not Richmond.  Grant could go around Richmond, because the bulk of supplies came by railroads through Petersburg, so if that city fell Richmond could survive only a few weeks.  While Lee had always moved his army rather than be outflanked, he couldn't simply move the Confederate capitol.  This time he would have to fight.

Grant was not just moving the Army of the Potomac on the chessboard of central Virginia.  Butler was an incompetent general, but away from the indecision of their superior the troops were capable.  So on June 9 Grant sent an infantry division (under Gillmore) and a cavalry division (under Kautz) from Bermuda Hundred to the FIRST ASSAULT ON PETERSBURG, with orders to seize the city and destroy the railroads.  Gillmore was an excellent engineer officer, who'd done well in sieges in South Carolina, but he wasn't an experienced field officer.  He judged the Confederate lines were too strongly manned for him to storm them, and waited for Kautz to have some effect further west.  Kautz did hardly any better: he attacked head-on against the first defenders he found, three times.  After three repulses, he found a flank and got to the edge of the city of Petersburg.  There he found more defenders, and pulled back - with a small force of rebel cavalry snapping at his heels.  The Confederates had virtually no experienced troops in town, mainly militia, convalescents, and youths.  But they had enough against a hesitant attack when manning the extensive defenses which had been started back in 1862 and extended ever since.

So when Grant crossed the James, Lee thought Petersburg was reasonably safe against known threats.  Then he misjudged where Grant was going: he thought Grant was only moving south of the Chickahominy swamps (returning to McClellan's old stomping ground of the Seven Days Battles) where he would operate directly against Richmond.  A stratagem helped foster this misunderstanding: the cavalry screening Grant's rear was mistaken for cavalry screening Grant's advance - Lee made the evidence he saw fit his preconceptions.  Thus, for the three vital days of June 15-17, Lee held his main body north of the James when Grant was launching the SECOND ASSAULT ON PETERSBURG.

On any of those three days Petersburg could have been captured, which would have shortened the war.  For the 15th Grant intended a two-pronged advance, 'Baldy' Smith's XVIII Corps coming from Bermuda Hundred (10,000 infantry reinforced with 2,400 cavalry under Kautz and 3,700 US Colored Troops as well) and Winfield Hancock's II Corps moving west from Weyanoke.  The plan was straightforward, but Meade didn't understand the urgency for Hancock, nor that the idea was an assault.  So Hancock was five or six hours late starting and when he got to the Petersburg area he simply took up positions.

Thus the whole burden fell on Baldy Smith.  He got the necessary dawn start, and only had a two-hour march to Petersburg, but Beauregard had sent out a delaying force.  It was only a single cavalry regiment with an artillery battery, but they fell back skillfully, and cost Smith three hours.  With that finally pushed aside, Smith arrived at the main defensive line, heavily dotted with guns.  Beauregard had only about 3,000 men - less than half solid infantry - and was stalling as hard as he could in order for Hoke's division to arrive from Bermuda Hundred.  Smith's men had to pull back out of sight to deploy for their attack - Smith was convinced that the rebels would not deploy so many guns without substantial infantry to protect them.  His next move was to bring up his guns - but some genius of an artillery officer had sent the horses to be watered.  After yet another hour's delay, about 7pm, the bombardment started.  The rebels were silent, holding their fire until they could smash the assaulting lines.  Instead, the USCT went forward as skirmishers, the artillery never fired, and the line was broken.  They rolled up the line after dark, and by 9pm they had ripped a 1.5-mile hole in the fortifications.  Rather than go through the hole, Smith wanted to switch his tired men with Hancock's fresh ones, fine in theory, but it took until 11pm.

The opportunity had been there for Smith to waltz through the paper-thin defenses (the Confederates called it the 'Battle of Old Men and Young Boys' because the majority of their troops were city militia) but one thing after another caused it to slip away.  Also, always in everyone's mind was the power of entrenched defenders - as Cold Harbor had demonstrated twelve days earlier.

The 16th was another close-run thing.  Lee would not send his men south of the James, but he let Beauregard strip the Bermuda Hundred line.  That freed Bushrod Johnson's division to thicken the line at Petersburg (Beauregard's strength approached 14,000 there) but left only 1,000 at Bermuda Hundred.  Butler's remaining troops advanced and took the trenches that faced them, but advanced no further.  To be fair to Butler, he couldn't support an advance that went further - Lee would gobble up whatever he left out of the defenses - but he could have wrought damage on the railroads linking Richmond and Petersburg.  But the main event would be at Petersburg.  Corps were advancing on Petersburg as fast as Grant could move them over the river; IX Corps arrived about 10am on the 16th.  But Hancock (senior officer on the spot) was cautious.  He widened the breach in the Confederate lines in the morning, then waited until 6pm to launch his main attack.  He again widened the gap in the Confederate line - now over 2 miles - but suffered heavily against the reinforced defenders.  The rebels did not have elaborate fortifications, but in defense they were very solid and made the Federals pay for their gains.  Hancock was satisfied with his gains, and probably couldn't have coaxed more effort out of his disorganized men.  They did beat off a number of Confederate night attacks, as Beauregard tried to use surprise to regain better defensive positions.
But a day had passed without a breakthrough.  Yes, Hancock had a wide breach in the defenses, but he had hardly moved through.  Meanwhile, the rebels were strengthening their positions behind that breach - as they'd done elsewhere.

The 17th was probably the Union's last chance to take Petersburg with relative ease.  It wouldn't have been easy, but far easier than it eventually was in 1865.  The fresh IX Corps would bear the brunt of the fighting; XVIII and II Corps had gone through an expensive day of combat.  The first move was a silent dawn attack; it worked, catching an exhausted Confederate unit asleep.  But follow-ups were expensive and never consolidated their temporary gains.  Still, the pressure exerted, the Union gains so far, and the proximity of the Federal troops to their lightly-entrenched line caused the Confederates to draw back to a shorter and stronger line.

So the Confederacy weathered the crisis.  On the night of June 17-18 three couriers in succession took Lee news about Federal strength south of the James; he finally believed the reports and ordered his remaining two corps (Anderson's and AP Hill's) south.  Enough of Hill's men arrived to wreck the next Union dawn attack (these were becoming predictable).  Meade had received reports of how weak the rebels were and ordered an attack all along the line; he calculated that somewhere his men would break through.  But Beauregard's withdrawal and Lee's troop movement meant the attacks failed, with very heavy losses virtually everywhere.

It was enough; Grant decided that Petersburg could not be taken by storm.  He ordered his men to entrench as close to the Confederate lines as possible; this way if the Confederates thinned their lines too far a Union storming party was a few minutes away.  But his main effort would be to stretch Lee to the breaking point.  He would go around Lee's lines to the south, or even probe at Richmond itself. 

The first thing was to move further west around Petersburg along the JERUSALEM PLANK ROAD; II and VI Corps were moved from the reserve.  But Lee had wind of what was up, and sent AP Hill with three divisions.  The Federals got lost in the woods; Hill found the seam, and pounced.  The veteran II Corps lost 1,700 men on June 22, many prisoners who had lost the will to fight in the endless assaults on entrenched positions.  Hancock was reaching his limit; he was suffering from his Gettysburg wound and now his elite II Corps was unreliable.

On the same day Grant also launched a cavalry raid, with Kautz and James Wilson raiding westward.  He counted on them having an initial advantage, and their orders were to wreck the track unless under heavy pressure.  The raid lasted 10 days, with skirmishes at STAUNTON RIVER BRIDGE and SAPPONY CHURCH, but achieved virtually nothing.  Confederate cavalry intercepted the raiders right from the start; cavalry dogged their steps and infantry attacked at intervals.  Wilson lost 1,500 men, burned his wagons, and abandoned a dozen guns at REAM'S STATION I.  Behind him the rails were repaired.

The siege wasn't bad - yet.  The armies still had some room to maneuver to the west, and it hadn't lasted long enough for despair to set in.  There was plenty of sniping, monotony in the trenches, and shelling.  Grant started extending the City Point Railroad to supply his men (and especially the horses, each of which needed as much weight of food as eight men) and looking for ways to solve his tactical dilemma.

While doubting the possibilities of breaking the rebel defenses, Grant did not give up hope.  When the commander of the 48th Pennsylvania, a regiment of miners, brought him a plan to tunnel under the defenses, detonate a mine, and rush through the gap, he accepted it.  In rough terms there was little to be lost, and much to be gained.  So the miners started at the end of June and in a month they had a tunnel longer than anyone thought possible, and packed with explosives.  They were ready, the assault troops (a USCT division under Ferrero) were ready, and the diversionary effort was ready.
The diversion was II Corps and Sheridan's cavalry probing at Richmond.  With luck they would get through the thin Confederate line; if unlucky they would attract rebel reserves that would otherwise be able to fill the line at Petersburg.  At DEEP BOTTOM I they were unlucky, and Lee moved a corps of troops north to block them.  After some skirmishing, they sized things up and swung back south of the James, able to reinforce the July 30 attack.
The attack at THE CRATER was heavily revised: new (white) troops were assigned, because if everything went wrong Grant did not want to be accused of sending Colored Troops to be slaughtered.  But he expected success; IX Corps would lead the way, supported on both flanks and with an entire corps in reserve.  The Union artillery smothered the rebel guns, and the mine blew up.  Ledlie's division charged while Ledlie himself got sozzled on a bottle of rum in a dugout.  The Confederates were stunned; it took 30 minutes for their infantry to recover, an hour for the artillery to start firing.  But Ledlie's troops went straight into the Crater (30 feet deep, 97 feet wide, 150 feet long) and couldn't easily climb out.  Ferrero's men had been trained to do the right thing: go around, not through.  Behind Ledlie's men crowded Potter's and Willcox's, then Ferrero's were committed (minus Ferrero, who joined Ledlie swilling liquor; both were later sacked).  A few of the Colored Troops did what they were taught and widened the gap, but meanwhile Confederate reserves were arriving.  Billy Mahone's small division saved the day, first by firing into the mob in the Crater and keeping them off balance, then by attacking and panicking the mob.
The result was a mess.  Nobody had done well except the engineers; the Union bodycount was over 4,400 (over 1,600 in Ferrero's division alone - the Colored Troops still ended up taking the punishment Grant feared).  It probably would have worked, if given a fair chance.  But senior officers (up to Burnside himself) doubted it would work, so they didn't do the necessary things so it could work.  For instance Burnside didn't open paths through the obstacles in front of his trenches - so the attackers were delayed in advancing.  Ferrero and Ledlie were easy targets, but they certainly deserved all the blame they got.

Grant was back to moving north and south around Lee's main lines.  The first move (late July) was northward at DEEP BOTTOM II, with II and X Corps sent to put pressure on Richmond so troops wouldn't go to the Shenandoah.  Nothing much was accomplished.
The next move was to the south; on August 18 Warren pulled out of the line and swung around the rebel flank to tear up the Weldon Railroad at GLOBE TAVERN.  Warren was bolstered with a bit of cavalry and most of IX Corps.  Confederate cavalry warned of his arrival, and Henry Heth's division sliced into Warren's left flank but was too weak to do serious damage.  Lee couldn't sit still with one of the vital supply railroads being torn up, and reinforced Heth and sent AP Hill to command it all.  Hill found a weak spot on Warren's right and pounced, while Heth came in from the front.  Warren eventually drove the Confederates back, but lost over 2,500 prisoners.  Federal troops were not fighting as hard; the long 1864 campaign had eroded morale, and many of the prisoners were conscripts.  Still, Warren had regained his original positions, but then pulled back to more secure ground and easily repulsed another attack by Hill.  He dug in to secure his gains, and Grant now had a line that extended from the Appomattox to the Weldon Railroad.  Lee had to unload his supplies ten miles down the line, put them on wagons, haul them around Warren's position, and then put them back on the Southside Railroad - which increased the strain and decreased the amount of supplies arriving.
Grant tried to press his advantage to the south, and a few days later sent Hancock down to oversee operations.  (Hancock was acting as a deputy army commander, taking command where more than one corps was committed.)  But Lee was alive to the danger and had plenty of troops in the area, and one of Hancock's divisions acted like sheep.  In battle at REAM'S STATION II they would neither advance nor retreat, but stood still.  Hancock was distraught; some he blamed on conscripts and substitutes, some he blamed on lack of veterans, but he pointed to a key item: lack of officers.  Officers were killed at a much higher rate than enlisted men throughout the war (they had to earn the right to give orders by their valor) and through the bloody 1864 campaign officers were killed in droves.  The effect was a complete repulse of Hancock's force, and he pulled back.

That was at the end of August; after a month of 'rest', if trench warfare was a rest, Grant started another operation.  It was another right-left combination.  North of the James River he used some of Butler's troops to attack at CHAFFIN'S FARM.  The US Colored Troops performed very well, and overran the fort - but went no further.  Confederate counterattacks couldn't push them back but Lee could build a new line only a little further back, and the stalemate was back.

The left hook was a mix of Parke's IX Corps and Warren's V Corps, with Gregg's cavalry.  The opening move flanked the Confederates out of one line, and the second day's operations overran another fort around PEEBLES' FARM.  But Meade could sense growing Confederate strength.  He broke off the attack and entrenched a new line that stretched Lee a few miles further.

Lee was one of the most aggressive commanders of the war, and he knew there was no chance for Southern victory if he stayed purely on the defensive.  In early October he struck back, north of the James along the DARBYTOWN & NEW MARKET ROADS where Union forces were weaker.  If everything worked right, he might even overwhelm the whole Union force north of the James.  It started right, but came to a quick end, and Lee pulled his men back to their fortifications.

About a week later Grant sent his men to probe the new Confederate line on the DARBYTOWN ROAD.  They found it, sure enough, and one brigade again proved that a fortified defender could inflict heavy losses.

So in late October, Grant mounted his third right-left attack.  He intended to swing round Lee's right and cut the Southside Railroad, severing Petersburg from supplies except via Richmond.  But first he had to fight at the BOYDTON PLANK ROAD.  Hancock with II Corps led the way, supported by Warren's V Corps and Parke's IX (formerly Burnside's; he was involved in a Court of Inquiry about the Crater).  Hancock led, got across the vital Plank Road, but was intercepted.  Meanwhile V and IX Corps were drawn away to fight other rebel units and a concerted counterattack hit Hancock's men.  They fought their way out, but Grant had lost the advantage of surprise, and pulled back after only two days operations.
Butler made another set of ineffective moves on the northern front at FAIR OAK & DARBYTOWN ROAD, which ended a combined effort with little results.

Grant was still as determined as ever, and as long as he held Lee's men in a vice at Petersburg then other Union armies were basically free to tear the Confederacy apart.  Victory at Petersburg would shorten the war, there was no doubt about that, but Union victory was all but assured once John Hood wrecked his army in Tennessee.

Winter slowed the tempo of operations, but Grant made sure the pressure stayed heavy.  In December Warren ripped up another chunk of the Weldon without much Confederate interference.  Lee had to use more horses and wagons to move supplies across the wintry roads, so fewer supplies got through.  Everything was in short supply before this move, and belts had to be tightened further afterwards.  Trench warfare was costing both sides, not only in blood casualties, but in sickness. 

But still Lee's men fought on: in February Grant made yet another move to the southwest at HATCHER'S RUN, and so did Lee - the only result was that both sides had a longer line.  Yet if that was 'all' it was close to enough.  Lee was running out of reserves, and had to keep most of his army in the trenches most of the time.  The men were losing weight and strength, and disease took a heavy toll.

Grant was plotting the complete destruction of the Confederacy in early 1865.  He had a multi-pronged attack from southwestern Virginia eastward; Sherman was cutting a swathe through North Carolina; two columns were to wreck what remained of Confederate power in Alabama.  Meanwhile, he still wanted to break Lee's army at Petersburg before Sherman arrived in the rear.
To increase his strength he called Sheridan's cavalry corps from over in the Shenandoah, where they had wintered.  More cavalry would not only increase Grant's numbers, but also his mobility - especially since Lee's cavalry was worn down in numbers and quality, with underfed horses and guns that were no match for Union repeating carbines.  On his way east Sheridan smashed the remnants of Jubal Early's forces at WAYNESBORO and then raided through central Virginia.

Lee knew the end was near if he didn't pull a rabbit out of his hat.  So on March 25 he planned an attack at the center-right of the Union line, at FORT STEDMAN.  There were elaborate plans on how to break the first line of defenses, then the second line was to be overrun and the cavalry to spur through the gap and destroy the immense Union supply base at City Point.  The first attack worked, but the second part slowed in confusion.  Individual Federal regiments counterattacked bravely and bought time for a major blow, which smashed the rebel forces; they lost heavily in prisoners, and even lost part of the original defense line.

And with that the siege of Petersburg was nearly over.  Grant had already picked March 29 to be the start of his spring campaign, one that would go down in history as the APPOMATTOX CAMPAIGN.  The attack at Fort Stedman did not delay him a single day, and in three days he had broken Lee's line.  In another week Grant and Lee would be together in Wilmer McLean's parlor at Appomattox Courthouse, and the war would be nearly over.

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(Siege of Richmond and Petersburg)