Grant Advances
to Petersburg
Having brilliantly extricated his Union army from Cold Harbor, Grant soon had many of his troops and
supplies crossing the James River over a 2,100-ft (640-m) pontoon bridge. But his field commanders
failed to capture the key railroad junction of Petersburg before Lee and his army caught up with them.
A
s the night of June 12, 1864 fell
on the ravaged fields around
Cold Harbor, Union soldiers were
quietly on the move. Once well to the
rear, they assembled into regiments
and then into corps. At dawn, Lee
received the astonishing news that the
Army of the Potomac had vanished
with the night. Grant decided to move
against the Confederate supply lines,BEFORE
The stalemate at Cold Harbor as the two
armies faced each other from their trenches
grew intolerable for both Grant and Lee.
GRANT LOOKS SOUTH
After Cold Harbor ❮❮ 260–61, Grant
continued to refine his strategy. He ordered a
detachment of Sheridan’s cavalry to destroy
the railroads west and southwest of
Richmond, knowing that Lee’s cavalry would
set off in pursuit, leaving him temporarily
blind. Grant was planning an intricate move,
with an eye on the railroad junction at
Petersburg, 20 miles (32km) south of
Richmond and beyond the James River.
PETERSBURG’S DEFENSES
The city was partially protected by formidable
fortifications, called the Dimmock Line, after
military engineer Charles Dimmock, who had
directed their construction in 1862. In May,
General P. G. T. Beauregard, in charge of the
city’s defenses, had bottled up Butler’s Army of
the James at Bermuda Hundred ❮❮ 254–55.
That allowed him to send many of his troops to
reinforce Lee, but left him with scant forces to
defend Petersburg against a surprise attack.
especially the five railroads intersecting
in Petersburg. To do this, however, he
needed to steal a march south and
cross the James River, which in places
was several miles wide.Feats of transportation
While Grant was “all-observant, silent,
inscrutable,” as one subordinate put it,
the Eighteenth Corps under General
William F. Smith marched northeast
to board troop transports waiting on
the York River. Most of the infantry
marched south to the north shore of
the James River, and were ferried to
the opposite bank. The remainder—First attack at Petersburg
On June 15, 1864 the Union Eighteenth Corps carried a
significant portion of the Dimmock Line, as depicted in
this illustration from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.
This initial success was not followed up.Bridging the James River
Between June 14 and June 17, 1864, Union
engineers laid a pontoon bridge, employing
101 pontoons, to span a nearly half-mile
(800-m) wide stretch of the James River.