Books
Siege
Siege of Petersburg
15 June 1864–2 April 1865
After failing to destroy Robert E. Lee’s army in the Overland Campaign, Ulysses S. Grant crossed the James River and attacked Petersburg, a crucial railway centre south of Richmond. The first Union assaults in June 1864 failed, and both armies constructed extensive fortified lines around Petersburg and the Confederate capital.
For more than nine months Union forces extended their positions westward, attacking the railways that supplied Richmond and the Army of Northern Virginia. The Battle of the Crater on 30 July 1864 followed the explosion of a Union mine beneath the Confederate line, but poor coordination turned the assault into a costly defeat. Union breakthroughs in April 1865 finally forced the evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond.
Cold Mountain begins after Inman is gravely wounded in the fighting at Petersburg, while the wider campaign leads directly to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.
