The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

392 Chapter 14 The War to Save the Union

Ulysses S. Grant, poses at City Point, Virginia during the siege of
Petersburg. An 8.5-ton siege gun, mounted on a railroad flatcar,
hurled 200-pound bombs onto Confederate positions during the
siege. Trench warfare ensued, a chilling harbinger of World War I in
early twentieth-century Europe.

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AppomattoxR.

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Richmond

Culpeper

Chancellorsville

Fredericksburg

The Wilderness

(May 5–7, 1864)

Appomattox

Court House

Lee surrenders

(April 9, 1865)

Sayler’s

Creek

(April 6, 1865)

Petersburg

(Besieged, June

1864–April 1865)

Cold Harbor

(June 3, 1864)

Spotsylvania

Courthouse

(May 8–12, 1864) North Anna

(May 23–27, 1864)

Five Forks

(April 1, 1865)

Amelia Court House

Area controlled by Union

Area seized by Union

Union advance

Confederate advance

Confederate retreat

Union victory

Confederate victory

Fortifications

(April 1, 1865)Date(s) of battle

VIRGINIA

MARYLAND

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Lee

Grant

Toward Lee’s Surrender in Virginia, 1864–1865During the final

year of the war in the East, Grant kept driving toward Richmond, and

Lee kept blocking his way, like two whirling wrestlers locked in a

hold. His army battered and bloodied, Lee surrendered at

Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865.

the Confederates once more in strong defenses. He
attacked. It was a battle as foolish and nearly as one-
sided as General Pakenham’s assault on Jackson’s line
outside New Orleans in 1815. “At Cold Harbor,” the
forthright Grant confessed in his memoirs, “no
advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the
heavy losses we sustained.”
Sixty thousand casualties in less than a month!
The news sent a wave of dismay through the North.
There were demands that “Butcher” Grant be
removed from command. Lincoln, however, stood
firm. Although the price was fearfully high, Grant was
gaining his objective. At Cold Harbor, Lee had to
fight without a single regiment in general reserve
while Grant’s army was larger than at the start of the
offensive. When Grant next swung around his flank,
striking south of the James River toward Petersburg,
Lee had to rush his troops to that city to hold him.
As the Confederates dug in, Grant put Petersburg
under siege. Soon both armies had constructed com-
plicated lines of breastworks and trenches, running for
miles in a great arc south of Petersburg, much like the
fortifications that would be used in France in World
War I. Methodically the Union forces extended their
lines, seeking to weaken the Confederates and cut the
rail connections supplying Lee’s troops and the city of
Richmond. Grant could not overwhelm him, but by
late June, Lee was pinned to earth. Moving again
would mean having to abandon Richmond.

Sherman in Georgia

The summer of 1864 saw the North submerged in

pessimism. The Army of the Potomac held Lee at bay

but appeared powerless to defeat him. In Georgia,

General Sherman inched forward methodically against

the wily Joseph E. Johnston, but when he tried a

direct assault at Kennesaw Mountain on June 27, he

was thrown back with heavy casualties. In July

Confederate raiders under General Jubal Early dashed

suddenly across the Potomac from the Shenandoah

Valley to within five miles of Washington before being

turned back. A draft call for 500,000 additional men

did not improve the public temper. Huge losses and

the absence of a decisive victory were taxing the

northern will to continue the fight.

In June, Lincoln had been renominated on a

National Union ticket, with the Tennessee Unionist

Andrew Johnson, a former Democrat, as his running

mate. He was under attack not only from the

Democrats, who nominated General McClellan and

came out for a policy that might almost be character-

ized as peace at any price, but also from the Radical

Republicans, many of whom had wished to dump

him in favor of Secretary of the Treasury Chase.