THE ADVANCE ON PETERSBURG.
ADVANCE ON PETERSBURG--GENERAL BUTLER'S MOVEMENT--BEAUREGARD'S
COUNTER-MOVEMENT--ADVANCE FORCES UNDER GENERAL SMITH--HANCOCK'S
ATTACK--CUTTING OFF THE RAILROADS--THE FIGHT AT WELDON
ROAD--BURNSIDE'S MINE--EXPLOSION AND THE SLAUGHTER AT THE
CRATER--FIGHTING AT DEEP BOTTOM--THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN ARMY
RAILROAD--SIEGE OF PETERSBURG BEGUN.
It had been a part of Grant's plan, in opening the campaign of 1864,
that Gen. B. F. Butler, with a force that was called the Army of the
James, should march against Richmond and Petersburg. He moved
promptly, at the same time with the armies led by Grant and Sherman,
embarking his forces on transports at Fort Monroe, and first making a
feint of steaming up York River. In the night the vessel turned back
and steamed up the James. Early the next day, May 6th, the troops were
landed at City Point, at the junction of the James and the Appomattox,
and intrenchments were thrown up. Detachments were sent out to cut the
railroads south of Petersburg, and between that city and Richmond; but
no effective work was done. General Butler was ordered to secure a
position as far up the James as possible, and advanced to Drury's
Bluff, where he was attacked by a force under General Beauregard and
driven back to Bermuda Hundred. At the point where the curves of the
James and the Appomattox bring those two streams within less than
three miles of each other, Butler threw up a line of intrenchments,
with his right resting on the James at Dutch Gap, and his left on the
Appomattox at Point of Rocks. The position was very strong, and it
would be hopeless for the Confederates to assault it. The disadvantage
was, that Beauregard had only to throw up a parallel line of
intrenchments across the same neck of land, and Butler could not
advance a step. What he had secured, however, was afterward valuable
as a protection for City Point, when Grant swung the Army of the
Potomac across the James, which became thenceforth the landing-place
for supplies.
Grant had reinforced Butler with troops under Gen. William F. Smith,
and planned to have an immediate advance on Petersburg while the Army
of the Potomac was crossing the James (June 14, 1864). The work was
intrusted to Smith, who was to get close to the Confederate
intrenchments in the night, and carry them at daybreak. He
unexpectedly came upon the enemy fortified between City Point and
Petersburg, and had a fight in which he was successful, but it caused
a loss of precious time. Grant hurried Hancock's troops over the
river, to follow Smith. But this corps was delayed several hours
waiting for rations, and finally went on without them. It appears that
Hancock's instructions were defective, and he did not know that he was
expected to take Petersburg till he received a note from Smith urging
him to hurry forward. Smith spent nearly the whole of the 15th in
reconnoitring the defences of Petersburg, which were but lightly
manned, and in the evening carried a portion of them by assault, the
work being done by colored troops under Gen. Edward W. Hincks. In the
morning of the 16th Hancock's men captured a small additional portion
of the works; but here that general had to be relieved for ten days,
because of the breaking out of the grievous wound that he had received
at Gettysburg. Gen. David B. Birney succeeded him in the command of
the corps. General Meade came upon the ground, ordered another
assault, and carried another portion. But by this time Beauregard had
thrown more men into the fortifications, and the fighting was stubborn
and bloody. It was continued through the 17th, with no apparent
result, except that at night the Confederates fell back to an inner
line, and in the morning the National line was correspondingly
advanced. In these preliminary operations against Petersburg, the
National loss was nearly ten thousand men. There is no official
statement of the Confederate loss, but the indications were that it
was about the same.
[Illustration: CITY POINT--A FEDERAL SUPPLY STATION.]
When Lee found where Grant was going, he moved east and south of
Richmond, crossing the James at Drury's Bluff, and presently
confronting his enemy in the trenches east and {398} south of
Petersburg. The country is well adapted for defence, and the works
were extensive and very strong. Seeing that the city itself could not
be immediately captured, Grant endeavored to sever its important
communications. The Norfolk Railroad was easily cut off; and the Army
of the Potomac, which for some time had hardly known any difference
between day and night, was allowed a few days of rest and comparative
quiet. But the most important line was the Weldon Railroad, which
brought up Confederate supplies from the South, and Grant and Meade
made an early attempt to seize it. On the 21st and 22d Birney's corps
was pushed to the left, extending south of the city, while Wright's
was sent by a route further south to strike directly at the railroad.
Wright came into a position nearly at right angles with Birney, facing
west toward the railroad, while Birney faced north toward the city.
They were not in connection, however, and did not sufficiently guard
their flanks. A heavy Confederate force under Gen. A. P. Hill, coming
out to meet the movement, drove straight into the gap, turned the left
flank of the Second Corps, threw it into confusion, and captured
seventeen hundred men and four guns. The fighting was not severe; but
the movement against the railroad was arrested. Hill withdrew to his
intrenchments in the evening, the Second Corps reëstablished its line,
and the Sixth intrenched itself in a position facing the railroad and
about a mile and a half from it. On this flank, affairs remained
substantially in this condition till the middle of August.
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL LYSANDER CUTLER.]
[Illustration: BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL J. J. BARTLETT.]
[Illustration: BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL RUFUS INGALLS.]
But meanwhile something that promised great results was going on near
the centre of the line, in front of Burnside's corps. A regiment
composed largely of Pennsylvania miners dug a tunnel under the nearest
point of the Confederate works. These works consisted of forts or
redans at intervals, with connecting lines of rifle-pits, and the
tunnel was directed under one of the forts. The digging was begun in a
ravine, to be out of sight of the enemy, and the earth was carried out
in barrows made of cracker-boxes, and hidden under brushwood. The
Confederates learned what was being done, and the location of the
tunnel, but did not succeed in striking it by countermining. They came
to have vague and exaggerated fears of it, and many people in
Petersburg believed that the whole city was undermined. The work
occupied nearly a month, and when finished it consisted of a straight
tunnel five hundred feet long, ending in a cross-gallery seventy feet
long. In this gallery was placed eight thousand pounds of powder, with
slow-matches. The day fixed for the explosion was the 30th of July. To
distract attention from it, and diminish if possible the force that
held the lines immediately around Petersburg, Hancock was sent across
the James at Deep Bottom, where an intrenched camp was held by a force
under Gen. John G. Foster, to make a feint against the works north of
the river. This had the desired effect, as Lee, anxious for the safety
of Richmond, hurried a large part of his army across at Drury's Bluff
to confront Hancock. With this exception, the arrangements for the
enterprise were all bad. The explosion of the mine alone would do
little or no good; but it was expected to make such a breach in the
enemy's line that a strong column could be thrust through and take the
works in reverse. For such a task the best of troops are required; but
Burnside's corps was by no means the best in the army, and the choice
of a {399} division to lead, being determined by lot, fell upon Gen.
James H. Ledlie's, which was probably the worst, and certainly the
worst commanded. Furthermore, the obstructions were not properly
cleared away to permit the rapid deployment of a large force between
the lines.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL W. H. F. LEE, C. S. A.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL HENRY HETH, C. S. A.]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL R. E. COLSTON, C. S. A.]
[Illustration: PETERSBURG, RICHMOND, AND VICINITY.]
A few minutes before five o'clock in the morning, the mine was
exploded. A vast mass of earth, surrounded by smoke, with the flames
of burning powder playing through it, rose two hundred feet into the
air, seemed to poise there for a moment, and then fell. The fort with
its guns and garrison--about three hundred men of a South Carolina
regiment--was completely destroyed, and in place of it was a crater
about thirty feet deep and nearly two hundred feet long. At the same
moment the heavy batteries in the National line opened upon the enemy,
to protect the assaulting column from artillery fire. Ledlie's
division pushed forward into the crater, and there stopped. General
Ledlie himself did not accompany the men, and there seemed to be no
one to direct them. Thirty golden minutes passed, during which the
Confederates, who had run away in terror from the neighboring
intrenchments, made no effort to drive out the assailants. At the end
of that they began to rally to their guns, and presently directed a
heavy fire upon the men in the crater. Burnside tried to remedy the
difficulty by pushing out more troops, and at length sent his black
division, which charged through the crater and up the slope beyond,
but was there met by a fire before which it recoiled; for the
Confederates had constructed an inner line of breastworks commanding
the front along which the explosion had been expected. Finally, both
musketry and artillery were concentrated upon the disorganized mass of
troops huddled in the crater, while shells were lighted and rolled
down its sloping sides, till those who were left alive scrambled out
and got away as best they could. This affair cost the National army
about four thousand men--many of them prisoners--while the Confederate
loss was hardly a thousand. Soon after this General Burnside was
relieved, at his own request, and the command of his corps was given
to Gen. John G. Parke. General Grant had never had much faith in the
success of the mine, and had given only a reluctant consent to the
experiment. Perhaps this was because he had witnessed two similar ones
at Vicksburg, both of which were failures. He could hardly escape the
criticism, however, that it was his duty either to forbid it
altogether or to give it every element of success, including
especially a competent leader for the assault.
On the 13th of August, Hancock made another and more serious
demonstration from Deep Bottom toward Richmond. {400} He assaulted the
defences of the city, and fighting was kept up for several days. He
gained nothing, for Lee threw a strong force into the intrenchments
and repelled his attacks. But there was great gain at the other end of
the line; for Grant took advantage of the weakening of Lee's right to
seize the Weldon Railroad. Warren's corps was moved out to the road on
the 18th, took a position across it at a point about four miles from
Petersburg, and intrenched. On the 19th, and again on the 21st, Lee
made determined attacks on this position, but was repelled with heavy
loss. Warren clung to his line, and made such dispositions as at
length enabled him to meet any assault with but little loss to
himself. A day or two later, Hancock returned from the north side of
the James, and was rapidly marched to the extreme left, to pass beyond
Warren and destroy some miles of the Weldon Railroad. He tore up the
track and completely disabled it to a point three miles south of Reams
Station, and on the 25th sent out Gibbon's division to the work some
miles farther. But the approach of a heavy Confederate force under
Gen. A. P. Hill caused it to fall back to Reams Station, where with
Miles's division (six thousand men in all) and two thousand cavalry it
held a line of intrenchments. Three assaults upon this line were
repelled, with bloody loss to the Confederates. General Hill then
ordered Heth's division to make another assault and carry the works at
all hazards. Heth found a place from which a part of the National line
could be enfiladed by artillery, and after a brisk bombardment
assaulted, carried the works, and captured three batteries. Miles's
men were rallied, retook a part of the line and one of the batteries,
and formed a new line, which they held, assisted by the dismounted
cavalry, who poured an effective fire into the flank of the advancing
Confederates. At night both sides withdrew from the field. Hancock had
lost twenty-four hundred men, seventeen hundred of whom were
prisoners. The Confederate loss is unknown, but it was severe.
[Illustration: EXPLOSION OF THE MINE BEFORE PETERSBURG.]
[Illustration: GLOBE TAVERN, GENERAL WARREN'S HEADQUARTERS AT
PETERSBURG.]
From that time Grant held possession of the Weldon Railroad, and
whatever supplies came to the Confederate army by that route had to be
hauled thirty miles in wagons. The National army constructed for its
own use a railroad in the rear of and parallel with its long line of
intrenchments, running from City Point to the extreme left flank. This
road was not particular about grades and curves, but simply followed
the natural contour of the ground. Then began what is called the siege
of Petersburg, which was not a siege in the proper sense of the word,
because the Confederate communications were open; but the military
preparations and processes were identical with those known as siege
operations, and every possible appliance, mechanical or military, that
could assist in the work was brought here.
{401} [Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN G. FOSTER.]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL H. H. HEATH.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL ROBERT B. POTTER AND STAFF.]
[Illustration: GENERAL DAVID B. BIRNEY.]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL WILLIAM HAYS.]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL ORLANDO B. WILCOX. (Afterward
Major-General.)]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL SIMON G. GRIFFIN.]
{402}