101 Things You Didn't Know about the Civil War by Thomas Turner

Author:Thomas Turner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Adams Media

49

Cat and Mouse in Petersburg

June 15, 1864–April 3, 1865. Grant and Lee spent the final months of the war in a deadly game of cat and mouse. Grant outmanned and outgunned his Confederate counterpart, but he never seemed able to get Lee’s army into a position in which it could be destroyed once and for all. The fighting culminated in the Siege of Petersburg, a ten-month standoff that ended only after the Confederate army, worn down by almost nonstop fighting, could no longer defend itself against a frontal assault.

Lee had handed Grant a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia, on June 3, 1864, and nine days later, much to Lee’s bewilderment, Grant quietly began moving his Army of the Potomac. His destination was Petersburg, a town about twenty miles south of Richmond that was vital to the Confederate capital’s railway supply lines and communications. Grant knew that if he could take Petersburg, Richmond would not be far behind.

A 2,100-foot pontoon bridge was quickly built by army engineers so that Union troops could cross the James River and, on June 15, an advance guard of more than 10,000 men commanded by William F. Smith stood ready to descend on Petersburg. The city was defended by a tiny Confederate army of just 2,500 men, led by Pierre G.T. Beauregard, but Smith didn’t know that. Assuming the opposing army to be much larger, he proceeded with extraordinary caution, coming close to taking the city. However, Beauregard’s soldiers managed to hold off the Union assault just long enough for Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia to come to their rescue.

Grant’s hopes for a quick victory in Petersburg (and a quick end to the war itself) were destroyed. Having no other recourse, he laid siege on the city, bombarding it daily with heavy artillery in the hope that he could drive Lee to surrender. Lee, meanwhile, grew increasingly frustrated. He knew that his army was greatly outnumbered and that his stand at Petersburg in defense of Richmond was a losing cause. He could hold out for a while, but not forever.

Grant tried to hasten the situation by extending his offensive line, a complicated maze of trenches, more than forty miles around to the southwest of Petersburg. Lee was forced to follow suit, stretching his defenses to the very limit. Despite the hardships in the trenches, Lee’s fortifications were incredibly solid and successfully repelled repeated Union assaults.

As the siege continued, Union forces slowly and methodically increased their stranglehold on the enemy by severing vital supply lines. Lee realized that he had little chance of successfully holding off Grant’s growing army and formed a plan that involved leaving the trenches around Petersburg and joining forces with Joseph E. Johnston’s army in North Carolina. On March 25, John B. Gordon attacked the Union line east of the city in a desperate attempt to carve out a path by which Lee’s army could escape. The rebel forces managed to capture Fort Stedman and nearly a half-mile of Union trenches, but they were finally forced back by a Union counterattack.

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