Federal forces had been unable to penetrate the Confederate defenses east of Petersburg, Virginia, after four days of costly fighting. General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant, the overall Federal commander, therefore directed the troops to stop attacking and start digging. The Federals were to entrench opposite the enemy as Grant announced, “I have determined to try to envelop Petersburg.”
Grant resolved to duplicate his siege of Vicksburg by starving Petersburg into submission. Since Petersburg was the main source of supply for the Confederate capital of Richmond, it was hoped that the fall of Petersburg would topple Richmond as well.
The 110,000 Federals were opposed by no more than 50,000 Confederates from General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and General P.G.T. Beauregard’s Department of Southern Virginia and North Carolina. Lee officially absorbed Beauregard’s department into his army on June 19. Lee’s entire army was now south of the James River in the Petersburg defense line.
Lee had to prevent the Federals from seizing any more ground that could force him to fall back to Richmond. The capital had to be protected from any potential surprise attack, and all railroads had to continue functioning to supply the defenders. Therefore, Lee’s men began constructing a nearly impregnable east-facing defense line that stretched 22 miles from Richmond to Petersburg.
Outside Petersburg, the Confederate line anchored on the Appomattox River to the north; it extended south and then west below the city to the Jerusalem Plank Road. Within this line, the Confederates defended three railroads needed for supplies:
- The Richmond & Petersburg, which connected the two cities;
- The South Side, which ran west to the Shenandoah Valley;
- The Weldon, which ran south to North Carolina.
Federals began entrenching, and siege warfare soon replaced the open combat that had characterized this campaign since it began in early May. The Federal line east of Petersburg mirrored that of the Confederates. Grant sought to extend this line all the way around Petersburg until it reached the Appomattox River west of town, but for now he could only stretch it to the Jerusalem Plank Road, southeast of town.
Major-General George G. Meade, commanding the Federal Army of the Potomac, filled the line with three of his four corps: the Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth. The Second Corps would be held in reserve, ready to be plugged into the line wherever needed most. Grant planned for Major-General Benjamin F. Butler’s Army of the James to break out of the Bermuda Hundred bottleneck and take the place of the Sixth Corps on the line. Meade was then to direct the Second Corps to advance west below Petersburg to form an anchor on the Appomattox River west of the city.
Federal troops were exhausted after over a month and a half of constant marching and fighting. Both the men and the officers were short-tempered and combative with each other. Lieutenant-Colonel Stephen Weld of the 56th Massachusetts wrote, “The feeling here in the army is that we have been absolutely butchered, that our lives have been periled to no purpose, and wasted.” The high command had “time and again recklessly and wickedly placed us in slaughter-pens… We can’t afford to make many more such bloody attacks as we have been doing. The enemy will outnumber us if we do so.”
Meade had bickered with Major-General Gouverneur Warren, commanding the Fifth Corps, since the campaign began, and it came to a head on June 19. Meade once again accused Warren of moving too slowly and failing to carry out orders in a timely manner. According to Meade, “Genl Warren exhibited so much temper and bad feeling forgetting the respect due to me as his superior officer and his senior in years–and ignoring every thing but his own sense of injury…” Warren wrote his wife, “A rupture is probable between me and Genl Meade… with whom I had a square understanding today, to the effect that I was no creature of his.”
Meade wrote a three-page letter to Grant asking permission to relieve Warren of his command. Meade accused Warren of underachieving at Mine Run, Spotsylvania, and most recently in the assaults on Petersburg. Meade wrote that Warren’s main problem–
“… consists in too great reliance on his own judgment, and in an apparent impossibility on his part to yield his judgment so as to promptly execute orders, where these orders should happen not to receive his sanction or be in accordance with his views… Such a defect strikes at the root of all Military subordination, and it is entirely out of the question that I can command this Army, if each Corps Commander is to exercise a similar independence of action.”
Meade acknowledged that Grant had given him permission to remove Warren during the Battle of Spotsylvania and he had chosen not to, but “I no longer feel called to exercise any further patience.” Grant resisted getting rid of Warren, only because army morale was already very low and this could make it worse.
Meade held off for now, but he warned Warren that if did not improve his performance, “a separation is inevitable.” Warren angrily wrote his wife, “I believe Gen’l Meade is an august and unfeeling man and I dislike his personal character so much now that it is improbable we shall ever have again any friendly social relations. I have also lost all confidence in his ability as a general.”
Nerves were frayed not only in the Federal armies but among the northern citizenry as well. Grant endured heavy criticism in the North for incurring such terrible losses of men in this campaign. Many noted that George B. McClellan had gotten much closer to Richmond two years ago while losing far fewer men. Members of Congress began calling Grant a failure, and First Lady Mary Lincoln said more than once, “He is a butcher, and is not fit to be the head of an army.” All this prompted President Abraham Lincoln to calm his own “anxiety” by traveling to Grant’s headquarters at City Point on the James River to meet with him in person.
Lincoln left the Washington Navy Yard aboard the steamer Baltimore on the night of the 20th. He was joined by his son Tad and Assistant Navy Secretary Gustavus V. Fox. The Baltimore reached City Point the next morning, 16 hours later. According to Colonel Horace Porter of Grant’s staff:
“As the boat neared the shore, the general and several of us who were with him at the time walked down to the wharf, in order that the general-in-chief might meet his distinguished visitor and extend a greeting to him as soon as the boat made the landing. As our party stepped aboard, the President came down from the upper deck, where he had been standing, to the after gangway, and reaching out his long, angular arm, he wrung General Grant’s hand vigorously, and held it in his for some time, while he uttered in rapid words his congratulations and expressions of appreciation of the great task which had been accomplished since he and the general had parted in Washington.”
Lincoln told Grant, “I just thought I would jump aboard a boat and come down and see you. I don’t expect I can do any good, and in fact I’m afraid I may do harm, but I’ll put myself under your orders and if you find me doing anything wrong just send me right away.”
The men went into the after-cabin of the steamer, where Grant told Lincoln, “You will never hear of me farther than Richmond than now, till I have taken it. I am just as sure of going into Richmond as I am of any future event. It may take a long summer day, as they say in the rebel papers, but I will do it.” Lincoln replied, “I cannot pretend to advise, but I do sincerely hope that all may be accomplished with as little bloodshed as possible.”
The men had lunch, and then Grant escorted Lincoln out to inspect the troops in the new Petersburg siege lines. The men rode on horseback, and as Porter recalled of Lincoln:
“Like most men who had been brought up in the West, he had good command of a horse, but it must be acknowledged that in appearance he was not a very dashing rider. On this occasion, by the time he had reached the troops he was completely covered with dust, and the black color of his clothes had changed to Confederate gray. As he had no straps, his trousers gradually worked up above his ankles, and gave him the appearance of a country farmer riding into town wearing his Sunday clothes.”
The men inspected white troops, and then Lincoln accepted Grant’s suggestion to visit the black troops. Porter wrote that the black men were almost hysterical with excitement upon seeing “the liberator of their race”:
“Always impressionable, the enthusiasm of the blacks now knew no limits. They cheered, laughed, cried, sang hymns of praise, and shouted in their negro dialect, ‘God bress Massa Linkum!’ ‘De Lord save Fader Abraham!’ ‘De day ob jubilee am come, shuah…’ The President rode with bared head; the tears had started to his eyes, and his voice was so broken by emotion that he could scarcely articulate the words of thanks and congratulation which he tried to speak to the humble and devoted men through whose ranks he rode. The scene was affecting in the extreme, and no one could have witnessed it unmoved.”
Lincoln met with Meade, and that night he conversed with Grant and his staff. The next morning, the president met with Major-General Benjamin F. Butler, commanding the part of his Army of the James trapped at Bermuda Hundred. Lincoln also visited with Rear-Admiral Samuel P. Lee, commanding the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. After inspecting the naval squadron, Lincoln returned to Washington, satisfied that Grant had matters well in hand.
The next day, Grant wrote Chief of Staff Henry W. Halleck at Washington, telling him the Federal armies should now focus almost exclusively on Lee’s army in Virginia and General Joseph E. Johnston’s army in Georgia. Grant explained:
“The siege of Richmond bids fair to be tedious, and in consequence of the very extended lines we must have, a much larger force will be necessary than would be required in ordinary sieges against the same force that now opposes us. With my present force I feel perfectly safe against Lee’s army, and, acting defensively, would still feel so against Lee and Johnston combined; but we want to act offensively. In my opinion, to do this effectively, we should concentrate our whole energy against the two principal armies of the enemy.”
As such, Grant wrote, “West of the Mississippi I would not attempt anything until the rebellion east of it is entirely subdued.” Grant asked Halleck to transfer the Nineteenth Corps from Department of the Gulf (headquartered at New Orleans) to join the Federals investing Petersburg. From this point forward, Grant’s sole focus would be the destruction of the Army of Northern Virginia.
Bibliography
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- Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command. Open Road Media, Kindle Edition, 2015.
- Davis, William C., Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1983.
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