By the morning of June 18, General Robert E. Lee’s entire Confederate Army of Northern Virginia (except for a corps in the Shenandoah Valley and a division at Bermuda Hundred) was now either at Petersburg, Virginia, or on its way there. The Confederates had abandoned their fortifications east of Petersburg the previous night and now manned new defensive works about a mile closer to the city.
Major-General George G. Meade, commanding the Federal Army of the Potomac (with General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant in overall command), had most of his army in position for the all-out assault that he had ordered to take place that morning:
- Major-General William F. “Baldy” Smith’s Eighteenth Corps held the right flank, northeast of Petersburg
- Major-General David B. Birney’s Second Corps was on Smith’s left, east of Petersburg
- Major-General Ambrose E. Burnside’s Ninth Corps was on Birney’s left, southeast of Petersburg
- Major-General Gouverneur Warren’s Fifth Corps was trying to come up on Burnside’s left, where the Confederate line ended at the Jerusalem Plank Road south of Petersburg
Meade’s force totaled 14 divisions and had orders to seize the enemy fortifications “at all costs.” The battle began at dawn, with Smith and Birney advancing on the right. Burnside prepared his corps to join the fray, even though he told Meade that he was not “confident of doing much” because his men were “very much wearied as we made three assaults yesterday.” Meade told him to commit all the men he had.
Birney’s artillery opened at 4 a.m., and Burnside’s Federals got moving on Birney’s left about a half hour later. Meade reported to Grant at 5:30 a.m., “My lines are advancing and will continue to do so until the enemy is found and felt.” Meade believed that the Confederates did not have a “regularly fortified line between the one abandoned and Petersburg. If the time is given them they will make one.”
Birney’s Federals easily stormed through the defenses before realizing that the Confederates had fallen back to stronger works. They did not approach the new fortifications a mile west until mid-morning. The Federals had no opportunity to reconnoiter these new defenses before attacking and had no idea what they were up against; the Confederates expected the Federals’ approach and sharply repulsed them. This indicated to the Federal commanders that Lee’s army had arrived to reinforce General P.G.T. Beauregard’s defenders.
Lee directed Lieutenant-General Richard Anderson’s First Corps to lead the march to Petersburg. Anderson got his men in motion at 3 a.m. and reached the Petersburg trenches four hours later. Lee wrote the superintendent of the Richmond & Petersburg Railroad, “Can trains run through Petersburg? If so, send all cars available to Rice’s Turnout. If they cannot run through, can any be sent from Petersburg to the point where the road is broken. It is important to get troops to Petersburg without delay.”
Lee personally arrived in Petersburg at 11 a.m. Beauregard later wrote that Lee was “at last where I had, for the past three days, so anxiously hoped to see him–within the limits of Petersburg.” The two commanders inspected and approved of the defenses, except for the fact that they were so close to Petersburg that the Federals could bombard the city. Beauregard proposed counterattacking the Federal left flank, but Lee demurred, arguing that the men were too exhausted to take the offensive. Thus, the Confederates would stay in their defenses.
Near noon, Burnside’s Federals came up on Birney’s left to assault the eastern and southeastern sectors of the line. Major-General Orlando Willcox’s division suffered particularly terrible losses, emerging from the fight with just 1,000 men uninjured. Brigadier-General James Ledlie’s division came up to support Willcox to no avail. Ledlie’s subordinates noted that their commander had been drinking heavily and was sprawled on the ground during the fight.
Warren’s corps came up on Burnside’s left and attacked Rives’s Salient south of Petersburg. The Confederates repelled this assault and seriously wounded Colonel Joshua L. Chamberlain, known for his heroic stand at Gettysburg. Not expecting Chamberlain to survive, Grant promoted Chamberlain to brigadier-general.
Meade sent orders at 11 a.m. for all to launch a second mass assault. Officers were to make “the columns of assault strong, have them well supported, and push them vigorously, endeavoring to have them advance rapidly over the ground without firing until they have penetrated the enemy’s line.” Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Lyman of Meade’s staff wrote that a second assault was “ordered for 12 m. by Gen. Meade. None made then by anybody.”
After sustaining heavy losses for no gain, the Federal corps commanders resisted Meade’s orders to renew the assaults. Two hours passed before Warren wrote that he would not launch another attack. Meade angrily responded, “I am greatly astonished at your dispatch of 2 p.m.” Meade then wrote his corps commanders, “I find it useless to appoint an hour to effect co-operation… what additional orders to attack you require I cannot imagine… Finding it impossible to effect co-operation by appointing an hour for attack, I have sent an order to each corps commander to attack at all hazards and without reference to each other.”
Many officers found Meade’s order for each corps commander to attack whenever he wanted without coordination with the rest of the army to be imprudent. Major-General Horatio G. Wright, commanding the Sixth Corps, asserted that the order was made “without brains and without generalship.” Warren bitterly told Meade that he “would not stand to be thus bullied.”
Meade looked to the Second Corps, which had the best fighting record in the army. But its commander, Major-General Winfield Scott Hancock, was out with an old wound and Birney was now in command. When Birney’s first assault failed, Meade told him, “You will attack again, as you propose, with the least possible delay.” Meade later wrote Birney, “You have a large corps, powerful and numerous, and I beg you will at once, as soon as possible, assault in a strong column.”
For the first time, several units in the Second Corps refused to advance. One of the few willing to fight was the 1st Maine Heavy Artillery, a unit of new gunners recently converted to infantry. Nearby veterans warned them against it, but the Maine men charged anyway. They sustained the worst loss of any regiment in any single battle of the war–632 of 850 men. The survivors became known as the “Bloody First Maine.”
Birney regretfully informed Meade at 5 p.m. that his Federals had been “repulsed with considerable loss.” This, coupled with news that both Burnside and Warren had failed to achieve a breakthrough, prompted Meade to tell his commanders to use their own “judgment as to further operations.” If they saw no chance of success, then they were to build defenses and hold what they had gained.
Fighting slowly ended that night, and the four-day battle for Petersburg was over. Meade reported to Grant at 9:50 p.m., “It is a source of great regret that I am not able to report more success. Our men are tired, and the attacks have not been made with the vigor and force which characterized our fighting in the Wilderness; if they had been, I think we should have been more successful.” Meade told his staff that night, “I had hoped all along to have entered Petersburg this day.”
Grant replied, “I am perfectly satisfied that all has been done that could be done, and that the assaults to-day were called for by all the appearances and information that could be obtained. Now we will rest the men and use the spade for their protection until a new vein can be struck.”
Grant had brilliantly moved the Army of the Potomac across the James River and into Lee’s rear, but he had followed that up with four days of futile and costly assaults. Since June 15, the Federals sustained 11,386 casualties (1,688 killed, 8,513 wounded, and 1,185 missing or captured). Since Grant launched his offensive on May 4, he had lost almost 75,000 men, but reinforcements received during that time still left him with 110,000 troops. As the troops began digging in, they could hear the clocks striking in Petersburg each hour; this caused a Connecticut soldier to write that “this was the most intolerable position the regiment was ever required to hold.”
The Confederates lost about 4,000 (200 killed, 2,900 wounded, and 900 missing or captured) since the 15th. Beauregard’s skillful defense of Petersburg was a remarkable feat considering the size of the enemy his men faced. Since opening the campaign, the Confederates suffered about 30,000 losses, which could not be replaced. The combined forces of Lee and Beauregard defending Petersburg numbered no more than 50,000 men.
Despite maintaining their numerical advantage, most Federals were exhausted and demoralized after a month and a half of constant marching, fighting, and dying. Officers lost their tempers with each other and their men, and Meade acknowledged that “the moral condition of the army” was broken. Warren said, “For 30 days it has been one funeral procession past me, and it has been too much!”
With more direct assaults on the Confederate defenses out of the question, Grant looked to duplicate what he had done at Vicksburg and place Petersburg under siege.
References
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- Angle, Paul M., A Pictorial History of the Civil War Years. New York: Doubleday, 1967.
- Catton, Bruce, The Army of the Potomac: A Stillness at Appomattox. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1953.
- Crocker III, H. W., The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War. Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2008.
- Davis, Jefferson, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government: All Volumes. Heraklion Press, Kindle Edition 2013, 1889.
- Davis, William C., Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1983.
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