Download or read book The First Battle for Petersburg written by William Glenn Robertson and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2015-07-19 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The nearly ten-month struggle for Petersburg, Virginia, is well known to students of the Civil War. Surprisingly few readers, however, are aware that Petersburg’s citizens felt war’s hard hand nearly a week before the armies of Grant and Lee arrived on their doorstep in the middle of June 1864. Distinguished historian William Glenn Robertson rectifies this oversight with the publication of The First Battle for Petersburg in a special revised Sesquicentennial edition. During his ill-fated Bermuda Hundred Campaign, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler in late May took note of the “Cockade City’s” position astride Richmond’s railroad lifeline and its minuscule garrison. When two attempts to seize the city and destroy the bridges over the Appomattox River failed, Butler mounted an expedition to Petersburg on June 9. Led by Maj. Gen. Quincy Gillmore and Brig. Gen. August Kautz, the Federal force of 3,300 infantry and 1,300 cavalry appeared large enough to overwhelm Brig. Gen. Henry Wise’s paltry 1,200 Confederate defenders, one-quarter of which were reserves that included several companies of elderly men and teenagers. The attack on the critical logistical center, and how the Confederates managed to hold the city, is the subject of Robertson’s groundbreaking study. Ironically, Butler’s effort resulted in Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard’s decision to slightly enlarge Petersburg’s garrison—troops that may have provided the razor-thin margin of difference when the head of the Army of the Potomac appeared in strength six days later. The First Battle for Petersburg describes the strategy, tactics, and generalship of the Battle of June 9 in full detail, as well as the impact on the city’s citizens, both in and out of the ranks. Robertson’s study is grounded in extensive primary sources supported by original maps and photos and illustrations. It remains the most comprehensive analysis of the June 9 engagement of Petersburg’s “old men and young boys.” Petersburg itself has never forgotten the sacrifices of its citizens on that summer day 150 years ago, and continues to honor their service with an annual commemoration. Once you read Dr. Robertson’s The First Battle for Petersburg: The Attack and Defense of the Cockade City, June 9, 1864, you will understand why.
Download or read book The Siege of Petersburg written by John Horn and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2014-08-19 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revised and expanded tactical study General Grant’s Fourth Offensive during the American Civil War. The nine-month siege of Petersburg was the longest continuous operation of the American Civil War. A series of large-scale Union “offensives,” grand maneuvers that triggered some of the fiercest battles of the war, broke the monotony of static trench warfare. Grant’s Fourth Offensive, August 14–25, the longest and bloodiest operation of the campaign, is the subject of John Horn’s revised and updated Sesquicentennial edition of The Siege of Petersburg: The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864. Frustrated by his inability to break through the Southern front, General Grant devised a two-punch combination strategy to sever the crucial Weldon Railroad and stretch General Lee’s lines. The plan called for Winfield Hancock’s II Corps (with X Corps) to move against Deep Bottom north of the James River to occupy Confederate attention while Warren’s V Corps, supported by elements of IX Corps, marched south and west below Petersburg toward Globe Tavern on the Weldon Railroad. The move triggered the battles of Second Deep Bottom, Globe Tavern, and Second Reams Station, bitter fighting that witnessed fierce Confederate counterattacks and additional Union operations against the railroad before Grant’s troops dug in and secured their hold on Globe Tavern. The result was nearly 15,000 killed, wounded, and missing, the severing of the railroad, and the jump-off point for what would be Grant’s Fifth Offensive in late September. Revised and updated for this special edition, Horn’s outstanding tactical battle study emphasizes the context and consequences of every action and is supported by numerous maps and grounded in hundreds of primary sources. Unlike many battle accounts, Horn puts Grant’s Fourth Offensive into its proper perspective not only in the context of the Petersburg Campaign and the war, but in the context of the history of warfare. “A superior piece of Civil War scholarship.” —Edwin C. Bearss, former Chief Historian of the National Park Service and award-winning author of The Petersburg Campaign: Volume 1, The Eastern Front Battles and Volume 2, The Western Front Battles “It’s great to have John Horn’s fine study of August 1864 combat actions (Richmond-Petersburg style) back in print; covering actions on both sides of the James River, with sections on Deep Bottom, Globe Tavern, and Reams Station. Utilizing manuscript and published sources, Horn untangles a complicated tale of plans gone awry and soldiers unexpectedly thrust into harm’s way. This new edition upgrades the maps and adds some fresh material. Good battle detail, solid analysis, and strong characterizations make this a welcome addition to the Petersburg bookshelf.” —Noah Andre Trudeau, author of The Last Citadel: Petersburg, June 1864–April 1865
Download or read book Civil War Petersburg written by A. Wilson Greene and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few wartime cities in Virginia held more importance than Petersburg. Nonetheless, the city has, until now, lacked an adequate military history, let alone a history of the civilian home front. The noted Civil War historian A. Wilson Greene now provides an expertly researched, eloquently written study of the city that was second only to Richmond in size and strategic significance. Industrial, commercial, and extremely prosperous, Petersburg was also home to a large African American community, including the state's highest percentage of free blacks. On the eve of the Civil War, the city elected a conservative, pro-Union approach to the sectional crisis. Little more than a month before Virginia's secession did Petersburg finally express pro-Confederate sentiments, at which point the city threw itself wholeheartedly into the effort, with large numbers of both white and black men serving. Over the next four years, Petersburg's citizens watched their once-beautiful city become first a conduit for transient soldiers from the Deep South, then an armed camp, and finally the focus of one of the Civil War's most protracted and damaging campaigns. (The fall of Richmond and collapse of the Confederate war effort in Virginia followed close on Grant's ultimate success in Petersburg.) At war's end, Petersburg's antebellum prosperity evaporated under pressures from inflation, chronic shortages, and the extensive damage done by Union artillery shells. Greene's book tracks both Petersburg's civilian experience and the city's place in Confederate military strategy and administration. Employing scores of unpublished sources, the book weaves a uniquely personal story of thousands of citizens--free blacks, slaves and their holders, factory owners, merchants--all of whom shared a singular experience in Civil War Virginia.
Download or read book The Final Battles of the Petersburg Campaign written by A. Wilson Greene and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Petersburg Campaign was what finally did it. After months of relentless conflict throughout 1864, the Confederate army led by General Robert E. Lee holed up in the Virginia city of Petersburg as Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant's vastly superior forces lurked nearby. The brutal fighting that took place around the city during 1864 and into 1865 decimated both armies as Grant used his manpower advantage to repeatedly smash the Confederate lines, a tactic that eventually resulted in the decisive breakthrough that ultimately doomed the Confederacy. The breakthrough and the events that led up to it are the subject of A. Wilson Greene's groundbreaking book The Final Battles of the Petersburg Campaign, a significant revision of a much-praised work first published in 2000. Surprisingly, despite Petersburg's decisive importance to the war's outcome, the campaign has received scant attention from historians. Greene's book, with its incisive analysis and compelling narrative, changes this, offering readers a rich account of the personalities and strategies that shaped the final phase of the fighting. Greene's ultimate focus on the climatic engagements of April 2, 1865, the day that Confederate control of Richmond and Petersburg was effectively ended. The book tells this story from the perspectives of the two army groups that clashed on that day: the Union Sixth Corps and the Confederate Third Corps. But Greene does more than just recount the military tactics at Petersburg; he also connects the reader intimately with how the war affected society and spotlights the soldiers, both officers and enlisted men, whose experiences defined the outcome. Thanks to his extensive research and consultation of rare source materials, Greene gives readers a vibrant perspective on the campaign that broke the Confederate spirit once and for all. A. Wilson Greene is president of Pamplin Historical Park & The National Museum of the Civil War Soldier near Petersburg, Virginia. He also has taught at Mary Washington College and worked for sixteen years with the National Park Service.
Download or read book Into the Crater written by Earl J. Hess and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2023-06-30 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864, was the defining event in the 292-day campaign around Petersburg, Virginia, in the Civil War and one of the most famous engagements in American military history. Although the bloody combat of that "horrid pit" has been recently revisited as the centerpiece of the novel and film versions of Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain, the battle has yet to receive a definitive historical study. Distinguished Civil War historian Earl J. Hess fills that gap in the literature of the Civil War with Into the Crater. The Crater was central in Ulysses S. Grant's third offensive at Petersburg and required digging of a five-hundred-foot mine shaft under enemy lines and detonating of four tons of gunpowder to destroy a Confederate battery emplacement. The resulting infantry attack through the breach in Robert E. Lee's line failed terribly, costing Grant nearly four thousand troops, among them many black soldiers fighting in their first battle. The outnumbered defenders of the breach saved Confederate Petersburg and inspired their comrades with renewed hope in the lengthening campaign to possess this important rail center. In this narrative account of the Crater and its aftermath, Hess identifies the most reliable evidence to be found in hundreds of published and unpublished eyewitness accounts, official reports, and historic photographs. Archaeological studies and field research on the ground itself, now preserved within the Petersburg National Battlefield, complement the archival and published sources. Hess re-creates the battle in lively prose saturated with the sights and sounds of combat at the Crater in moment-by-moment descriptions that bring modern readers into the chaos of close range combat. Hess discusses field fortifications as well as the leadership of Union generals Grant, George Meade, and Ambrose Burnside, and of Confederate generals Lee, P. G. T. Beauregard, and A. P. Hill. He also chronicles the atrocities committed against captured black soldiers, both in the heat of battle and afterward, and the efforts of some Confederate officers to halt this vicious conduct
Download or read book The Battle of Petersburg June 15 18 1864 written by Sean Michael Chick and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2015-04-01 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of Petersburg was the culmination of the Virginia Overland campaign, which pitted the Army of the Potomac, led by Ulysses S. Grant and George Gordon Meade, against Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. In spite of having outmaneuvered Lee, after three days of battle in which the Confederates at Petersburg were severely outnumbered, Union forces failed to take the city, and their final, futile attack on the fourth day only added to already staggering casualties. By holding Petersburg against great odds, the Confederacy arguably won its last great strategic victory of the Civil War. In The Battle of Petersburg, June 15-18, 1864, Sean Michael Chick takes an in-depth look at an important battle often overlooked by historians and offers a new perspective on why the Army of the Potomac's leadership, from Grant down to his corps commanders, could not win a battle in which they held colossal advantages. He also discusses the battle's wider context, including politics, memory, and battlefield preservation. Highlights include the role played by African American soldiers on the first day and a detailed retelling of the famed attack of the First Maine Heavy Artillery, which lost more men than any other Civil War regiment in a single battle. In addition, the book has a fresh and nuanced interpretation of the generalships of Grant, Meade, Lee, P. G. T. Beauregard, and William Farrar Smith during this critical battle.
Download or read book Richmond Redeemed written by Richard J. Sommers and published by Doubleday Books. This book was released on 1981 with total page 728 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A mere question of time" -- "The object ... is to surprise and capture Richmond" -- "Hold the intermediate line at all hazards" -- "We mowed them down like grass" -- "You must discard the idea of receiving re-enforcements ..." -- "The whole army will be under arms ready to move ..." -- " The enemy must be weak enough ... to let us in" -- "Rolling over the field like a large wave" -- "Push on ... without reference to any one else" -- "Damn Dunovant!" -- "The delay is unpardonable" -- "I shall not attack their entrenchments" -- Richmond redeemed.
Download or read book The Petersburg Campaign written by Edwin C. Bearss and published by . This book was released on 2020-04-19 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The wide-ranging and largely misunderstood series of operations around Petersburg, Virginia, were the longest and most extensive of the entire Civil War. The fighting that began in early June 1864 when advance elements from the Union Army of the Potomac crossed the James River and botched a series of attacks against a thinly defended city would not end for nine long months. This important--many would say decisive--fighting is presented by legendary Civil War author Edwin C. Bearss in The Petersburg Campaign: The Eastern Front Battles, June-August 1864, the first in a ground-breaking two-volume compendium now available in paperback.Although commonly referred to as the "Siege of Petersburg," that city (as well as the Confederate capital at Richmond) was never fully isolated and the combat involved much more than static trench warfare. In fact, much of the wide-ranging fighting involved large-scale Union offensives designed to cut important roads and the five rail lines feeding Petersburg and Richmond. This volume of Bearss' study of these major battles includes:- The Attack on Petersburg (June 9, 1864)- The Second Assault on Petersburg (June 15 - 18, 1864)- The Battle of the Jerusalem Plank Road (June 21 - 24, 1864)- The Crater (July 30, 1864)- The Battle of the Weldon Railroad (August 18 - 21, 1864)- The Second Battle of Ream's Station (August 25, 1864)Accompanying these salient chapters are original maps by Civil War cartographer George Skoch, together with photos and illustrations. The result is a richer and deeper understanding of the major military episodes comprising the Petersburg Campaign.
Download or read book Historic Photos of the Siege of Petersburg written by John S Salmon and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2007-08-01 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of Petersburg began as an unsuccessful Union assault against the city of Petersburg, Virginia, June 9, 1864, during the American Civil War. Due to the rag-tag group of defenders involved, it is sometimes known as the Battle of Old Men and Young Boys. A series of battles continued around Petersburg from June 15, 1864, to March 15, 1865, when General Lee finally yielded to the overwhelming pressure from General Grant's troops and the cutting off of his supply lines, leading to his retreat and surrender in the Appomattox Campaign. With approximately 200 photographs, many of which have never been published, this beautiful coffee table book shows dramatic shots of this historical battle in stunning black and white photography and is a must-have for any Civil War buff!
Download or read book The Petersburg Regiment in the Civil War written by John Horn and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With thirty-two original maps, numerous photos, diagrams, tables, and appendices, a glossary, and many explanatory footnotes, this book will long be hailed as one of the finest regimental histories ever penned.
Download or read book On to Petersburg written by Gordon C. Rhea and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2017-09-06 with total page 607 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With On to Petersburg, Gordon C. Rhea completes his much-lauded history of the Overland Campaign, a series of Civil War battles fought between Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee in southeastern Virginia in the spring of 1864. Having previously covered the campaign in his magisterial volumes on The Battle of the Wilderness, The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern, To the North Anna River, and Cold Harbor, Rhea ends this series with a comprehensive account of the last twelve days of the campaign, which concluded with the beginning of the siege of Petersburg. On to Petersburg follows the Union army’s movement to the James River, the military response from the Confederates, and the initial assault on Petersburg, which Rhea suggests marked the true end of the Overland Campaign. Beginning his account in the immediate aftermath of Grant’s three-day attack on Confederate troops at Cold Harbor, Rhea argues that the Union general’s primary goal was not—as often supposed—to take Richmond, but rather to destroy Lee’s army by closing off its retreat routes and disrupting its supply chains. While Grant struggled at times to communicate strategic objectives to his subordinates and to adapt his army to a faster-paced, more flexible style of warfare, Rhea suggests that the general successfully shifted the military landscape in the Union’s favor. On the rebel side, Lee and his staff predicted rightly that Grant would attempt to cross the James River and lay siege to the Army of Northern Virginia while simultaneously targeting Confederate supply lines. Rhea examines how Lee, facing a better-provisioned army whose troops outnumbered Lee’s two to one, consistently fought the Union army to an impasse, employing risky, innovative field tactics to counter Grant’s forces. Like the four volumes that preceded it, On to Petersburg represents decades of research and scholarship and will stand as the most authoritative history of the final battles in the campaign.
Download or read book The Damned of Petersburg written by Ralph Peters and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-06-28 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reimagines the stories of heroes Little Billy Mahone, Wade Hampton, Francis Channing Barlow, and Nelson Miles against a backdrop of the 1864 election and the Civil War battles of the summer and autumn of that year.
Download or read book The Battle of Petersburg June 15 18 1864 written by Sean Michael Chick and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2015-06-15 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of Petersburg was the culmination of the Virginia Overland campaign, which pitted the Army of the Potomac, led by Ulysses S. Grant and George Gordon Meade, against Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. In spite of having outmaneuvered Lee, after three days of battle in which the Confederates at Petersburg were severely outnumbered, Union forces failed to take the city, and their final, futile attack on the fourth day only added to already staggering casualties. By holding Petersburg against great odds, the Confederacy arguably won its last great strategic victory of the Civil War. In The Battle of Petersburg, June 15–18, 1864, Sean Michael Chick takes an in-depth look at an important battle often overlooked by historians and offers a new perspective on why the Army of the Potomac’s leadership, from Grant down to his corps commanders, could not win a battle in which they held colossal advantages. He also discusses the battle’s wider context, including politics, memory, and battlefield preservation. Highlights include the role played by African American soldiers on the first day and a detailed retelling of the famed attack of the First Maine Heavy Artillery, which lost more men than any other Civil War regiment in a single battle. In addition, the book has a fresh and nuanced interpretation of the generalships of Grant, Meade, Lee, P. G. T. Beauregard, and William Farrar Smith during this critical battle.
Download or read book The Confederate Alamo written by John J. Fox and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Confederate Alamo is the first book-length study ever written about the chaotic and bloody Battle of Fort Gregg. By April 2, 1865, General Ulysses S. Grant's men had tightened their noose around the vital town of Petersburg, Virginia. Trapped on three sides with a river at their back, the soldiers from General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had never faced such dire circumstances. To give Lee time to craft an escape, a small motley group of threadbare Southerners made a suicidal last stand at a place called Fort Gregg. Famous Civil War historian Douglas Southall Freeman described this fight as "one of the most dramatic incidents of an overwhelming day." The venerable Union commander, Major General John Gibbon, observed, "[t]he struggle was one of the most desperate ever witnessed"--Publisher's website.
Download or read book Richmond Must Fall written by Hampton Newsome and published by Civil War Soldiers and Strateg. This book was released on 2013 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the fall of 1864, the Civil War's outcome rested largely on Abraham Lincoln's success in the upcoming residential election. As the contest approached, cautious optimism buoyed the President's supporters in the wake of Union victories at Atlanta and in the Shenandoah Valley. With all eyes on the upcoming election, Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant conducted a series of large-scale military operations outside Richmond and Petersburg, whichhave, until now, received little attention. Drawing on an array of original sources, Newsome focuses on the October battles themselves, examining the plans for the operations, the decisions made by commanders on the battlefield, and the soldiers' view from the ground. At the same time, he places these military actions in the larger political context of the fall of 1864. With the election looming, neither side could afford a defeat at Richmond or Petersburg. Nevertheless, Grant and Lee were willing to take significant risks to seek great advantage. These military events set the groundwork for operations that would close the war in Virginia several months later.
Download or read book Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the Petersburg Campaign written by Dennis Rasbach and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2016-09-30 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain earned the sobriquet “Lion of the Round Top” for his tactical brilliance leading his 20th Maine Infantry on the rocky wooded slopes of Little Round Top at on the evening of July 2, 1863. Promoted to brigade command, he was presumed mortally wounded during an assault at Petersburg on June 18, 1864, and bestowed a rare “on the spot” battlefield promotion to brigadier general. He survived, returned to the command in 1865, and participated in the surrender of Lee’s veterans at Appomattox. Chamberlain went to his grave a half-century later believing he was wounded while advancing alone from the future site of “Fort Hell.” His thrust, so he and others believed, was against the permanent fortifications of the Dimmock Line at Rives’ Salient, near the Jerusalem Plank Road, through a murderous flank fire from what was soon to become Confederate-held Fort Mahone. This narrative has been perpetuated by Chamberlain scholars and biographers over the past century. Chamberlain’s wounding and Rives’ Salient are now fused in the modern consciousness. This interpretation was given an additional mantle of authority with the erection of a Medal of Honor Recipient’s placard near South Crater Road by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources on November 8, 2014. In fact, author Dennis A. Rasbach argues, a careful review of the primary evidence left by Chamberlain and his contemporaries suggests that Chamberlain was mistaken regarding the larger context of the engagement in which he fought and fell. An overwhelming body of evidence, much of it derived from Chamberlain himself, demonstrates he actually attacked a different part of the Confederate line in the vicinity of an entirely different road. This part of the Petersburg campaign must now be rewritten to properly understand the important battle of June 18, 1864, and Chamberlain’s role in it. Richly illustrated with photos and original maps, and documented with extensive primary accounts, Rasbach’s Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the Petersburg Campaign dispels a well-established Civil War myth, and sets the historical record straight.
Download or read book Grant s Left Hook written by Sean Chick and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2021-07-21 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the series of American Civil War battles fought at a town outside of Richmond, Virginia. Robert E. Lee feared the day the Union army would return up the James River and invest the Confederate capital of Richmond. In the spring of 1864, Ulysses Grant, looking for a way to weaken Lee, was about to exploit the Confederate commander’s greatest fear and weakness. After two years of futile offensives in Virginia, the Union commander set the stage for a campaign that could decide the war. Grant sent the 38,000-man Army of the James to Bermuda Hundred, to threaten and possibly take Richmond, or at least pin down troops that could reinforce Lee. Jefferson Davis, in desperate need of a capable commander, turned to the Confederacy’s first hero: Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard. Butler’s 1862 occupation of New Orleans had infuriated the South, but no one more than Beauregard, a New Orleans native. This campaign would be personal. In the hot weeks of May 1864, Butler and Beauregard fought a series of skirmishes and battles to decide the fate of Richmond and Lee’s army. Historian Sean Michael Chick analyzes and explains the plans, events, and repercussions of the Bermuda Hundred Campaign in Grant’s Left Hook: The Bermuda Hundred Campaign, May 5-June 7, 1864. The book contains hundreds of photographs, new maps, and a fresh consideration of Grant’s Virginia strategy and the generalship of Butler and Beauregard. The book is also filled with anecdotes and impressions from the rank and file who wore blue and gray. Praise for Grant’s Left Hook “A superb installment . . . one of the best books in the ECW series (easily rating among the top handful in this reviewer’s estimation). Sean Chick’s Grant’s Left Hook is highly recommended reading.” —Civil War Books and Authors “An excellent, very informative book about one of the least understood campaigns of the Civil War . . . also quite readable, and is highly recommended for anyone with an interest in the great conflict, and particularly for those who like tramping across battlefields.” —The NYMAS Review