Marching to Battlefields

This morning demanded some scheduled maintenance chores, basic utility time to attend to Little Red for an oil change, re-track our GPS and locate a gas station. Little Red was reading a quarter tank.
We arrived at Petersburg Battlefield in time for the 10:30 a.m. showing of a 17-minute video about the fall of Petersburg in 1865. Grant believed "the key to taking Richmond, capital of the Confederacy, is Petersburg." Eight or ten children in the audience watched with their parents. "This is the first time in months that we have seen kids in any number," I told Andy. "Must be the weekend of winter break since so many schools needed to make up snow days."
Confederates defended Petersburg with a line of earthworks ten miles long and dominated by 55 gun batteries, and General Ulysses S. Grant was not quick to charge. He had not forgotten the terrible loss at the Battle of Cold Harbor a couple years before.

The Dimmock Line Confederate defenses around Petersburg fell in a Union attack in June, 1864. Union soldiers broke through one and a half miles of Confederate defensive earthworks designed and constructed months before. Had they pursued the offensive, the Union troops could have taken Petersburg, once they had captured Battery 5 in the single day. Instead, they hesitated, remembering the massacre at Cold Harbor.
Below the crest was the Dictator, a mortar with 225-pound shells that could shoot two miles. Even though the huge Dictator by itself inflicted a minimal amount of damage, mortars proved the most effective weapons. They rained down damage indiscriminately day and night during the siege. Union troops dug in, and the siege lasted nine months. Boredom of trench warfare lured soldiers out at night to watch the amazing light shows of exploding shells. On the front they built small log cabins to sleep four and spent their time in open-air pavilions writing letters and playing cards.

At Union stronghold Fort Stedman outside Petersburg, Grant dug in to confront the Confederates. Lee, in a last desperate attempt, attacked at 4:30 a.m. on March 25, 1865, to break the tightening noose on his supply lines. We walked into the earthen fort, which initially fell to Lee. When the Union retook Fort Stedman later in the morning, Lee's final threat was squelched. Within a week Petersburg would fall, Lee would surrender the Richmond capital and his army would be forced to surrender at Appomattox.

We hiked part of the Colquitt Salient Trail. It was closed off for nesting eagles. A sign warned of fines in excess of $350,000.00 and three and a half years in prison for violators. Two joggers ran past us down the trail. I guess they didn't read the sign. "I'm all for eagles," I told Andy.

He had already headed the other direction. "I'm all for letting eagles nest in peace," he said.
Fort Stedman, the site of an offensive on July 18, 1864, marked the greatest regimental loss in a single action. A regiment from Maine attacked the Confederate earthworks about 300 yards northeast. It was suicide. Standing in the lower area at the memorial stone, we could understand the ridiculous loss. No one backed up the 900 Maine soldiers when they were told to attack, and 604 were killed. "It sounds like another Pickett's charge," said Andy.

At the Crater, Union troops, miners by profession, had dug an underground trench 511 feet long from Union picket lines underneath the Confederate position. The side magazines, packed with 8,000 pounds of powder, were exploded early in the morning on July 30, 1864. The initial blast sent body parts, dirt and provisions flying. It killed 278 outright and should have ended the war. But Union soldiers hesitated, some just staring from the edge of the blast crater. A Confederate counter around 9:00 a.m. held the 150-foot breach, and by afternoon the Confederates regained their control. So the war continued almost nine more months.

At Fort Wadsworth Union soldiers took control of the Weldon Railroad on August 21. We followed the Battlefield Tour signs south of the city. Planted fields had turned bright green. "I think it's clover," said Andy. "The farmer will plow it under for nitrogen."

In a 40-m.p.h. wind we walked around Fort Fisher. Mid-60 degree temperatures allowed for a jacketless stroll. "Look at the size of this!" exclaimed Andy. Larger than a city block squared, Fort Fisher, a Union stronghold, was the largest earthen fortification on the Petersburg front. Union troops had already secured the railroad lines, one by one, leading into Petersburg, the supply line to Confederate capital Richmond, about 25 miles to the north. When a single shot from Fort Fisher on April 2, 1865, signaled the final bombardment of Petersburg, Lee had already slipped away to Richmond and warned Confederate President Jefferson Davis to flee the city. Within days he surrendered at Appomattox Court House. The moment Petersburg fell, Lee gave up. Grant was right in assessing its importance.
It was easy to see why Grant changed his attack strategy to conquer Richmond after the Battle of Dewry's Bluff on May 15, 1862. The Battleship U.S.S. Galena and the ironclad Monitor sailed up the James River to within range of the Confederate gun placement on Dewry's Bluff. "Look at how high we are," said Andy, after we hiked to the fort. Fifteen Confederates were killed, but the Galena took so many shells it "looked like it had smallpox" and 27 Union sailors were killed before the Navy pulled back. They didn't try again to take Richmond until 1865, and that was not via direct assault but by siege through the supply center at Petersburg. Grant had learned a painful lesson.
Tredegar Iron Works in downtown Richmond on the James River operated into the 1980's. Today the main building is a Visitor Center for the Civil War Battlefields. In the 1800's the huge industrial complex produced railroad spikes. Along with Boy Scout troops, we watched the movie about the fall of Richmond.

On June 26, 1862, General Robert E. Lee tested the strength of Union defenses in an offensive strike at Beaver Dam Creek. Lee's untested and inexperienced troops moved erratically and were cut down by Union defenses. None of them crossed the creek, and Union soldiers held Cold Spring Road. Cautious, General McClellan never followed retreating Confederates after Lee lost 1,500 men. Instead, he withdrew to Cold Harbor.
We walked across the bridge of a swampy creek. "That's the original Cold Spring Road," said Andy, pointing to the wide dirt path, "and up there is where the Union soldiers lay in wait for their enemy."
At Gaines Mill we walked the trail down to Boatswain Creek. Here, on June 27, 1862, Confederate infantry repeatedly assaulted the fortified Union line along the creek in the valley. It was the heaviest fighting of the Seven Days' Battles with 15,000 casualties--9,000 Confederates and 6,000 Union dead. Texas and Georgia troops broke through the Union line, so Lee earned a Confederate victory, and McClellan retreated toward the James River, fearing a repeat of Cold Harbor three weeks before.
Futility and despair marked a Union army repulsed at Cold Harbor on June 2, 1862. Grant lost 4,000 in the morning and another 2,000 in the afternoon when he ordered the head-on assault. He said later it was a terrible mistake to try charging well-selected, well-manned entrenchments that were supported by artillery. Today trees cover the rolling hills and earthworks. Then the open field attack meant suicide. The Battle of Cold Harbor changed the war in the east from a war of maneuver to a war of siege. And that was Grant's eventual and ultimate key to victory.