In his official report on the final battle at Petersburg Captain R. Frank Hean of the 93rd Pennsylvania Infantry, wrote that the General Horatio Wright ordered the Union attack on "Battery Gregg," to begin at 4 a.m, on the morning of April 2, 1865. At the appointed hour, the Sixth Army Corp of the Army of the Potomac, charged forward and carried the enemy works. "In so doing," wrote...
In his official report, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Pleasants of the 48th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers wrote that the mine dug under the Confederate trenches outside Petersburg exploded at sixteen minutes to five, on the morning of July 30, 1864. The Quartermaster sergeant of the 48th Pennsylvania, Joseph Gould, wrote his history of the regiment, "It [the explosion] was a magnificent...
At 4:30am on March 25th, Lee's troops attacked Fort Steadman, part of the Union defense line, and caught them completely by surprise. The confederate troops captured Fort Steadman and the forces in Petersburg, VA. This capture was only temporary, it lost momentum and had little strength to maintain control allowing Union troops to counter attack later that same day forcing the confederate troops...
On April 1st General Lee feared the loss of Five Forks, in Petersburg, VA, would result in serious threat to Richmond and Petersburg and the Confederate line of retreat. He ordered Pickett to make sure that the troops “hold positions at all cost.' Lee and his troops prepared for battle entrenched; however, Union troops overpowered Confederate, 53,000 to 10,000. Grant's strategy was to force...
On May 25, 1865, John Herbert Claiborne took the oath of allegiance to the United States at the Office of the Provost Marshal in Petersburg, Virginia. He served as a surgeon with the title of Major in the Confederate Army during the war and continued to practice medicine after the surrender. In the terms of the oath he swore to "support and defend the Constitution" and to support all laws including...
When the Civil War broke out, Texan Charles William Trueheart was at the University of Virginia studying medicine. Despite initial reservations about secession, he joined the multitudes of southerners who rushed to enlist. At first an artilleryman, by 1864 Trueheart had finished studying medicine and was an assistant surgeon in the 8th Alabama Infantry of the Army of Northern Virginia....
In his report dated December 16, 1864, Chaplain Lorenzo Barber’s brigade had just finished what he called the destruction of “one of the most important railroads in the so-called Confederacy.” But even with his reputation as “one of the best shots in the army” and the nickname of “The Fighting Parson,” Barber revealed the inner struggle he felt as a minister and a soldier when he shared...
Both Union and Confederate leaders knew that a decisive battle at Petersburg could mean a decisive battle of the war; but, it is unlikely that Union leaders would have guessed that their best chance for victory would depend on constructing a mineshaft. There was a lot riding on the outcome of Petersburg, Virginia. Bryce Suderow, a Civil War historian, explains the Union’s...
One of the opening battles of the Petersburg Campaign and one that foreshadowed some of the tactics used in the trench warfare of the First World War was the Battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864. At this point in the war, the armies of Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant had settled into trench warfare in the area just to the south of Richmond, with the U.S. Army attempting...
The battle of Petersburg, Virginia was crucial in the minds of both Union and Confederate leaders. A leading Civil War historian Bryce A. Suderow explains the Union Army’s thinking: Grant believed that if Union forces could overpower the Confederate lines and crush the Southern stronghold the Southern capital would inevitably fall, ending the American Civil War in the Union’s...