Under Siege episode 3 - Petersburg 1864
Under Siege episode 3 - Petersburg 1864
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00:00By June 1864, the American Civil War had been raging for three long and bloody years.
00:13Places that had previously been mere points on a map had become synonymous with crushing
00:17defeats or glorious victories.
00:23Despite losing at Gettysburg, Vicksburg and Chattanooga, the Confederacy was still a strong
00:27and vital force.
00:30It became clear that if the Union were to crush the rebellion, a change was needed.
00:35Grant, the Union commander, decided to strike at the heartland of the Confederacy, not simply
00:41to gain territory, but to obliterate the Army of Northern Virginia as they stood to defend
00:46their capital.
00:49The two great generals, Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, would come face to face across
00:54the defences of a small town 32 kilometres to the south of Richmond.
01:00The siege that ensued lasted ten terrible months, and signalled the defeat of the Confederate
01:06forces.
01:08Petersburg, 1864.
01:24Today, Petersburg is simply a small town like so many others in Virginia.
01:49But in June 1864, it became the focus of a Union force of 124,000 men, intent on its
01:56destruction.
01:59Outnumbered five to one, the small Confederate army fought on through the fourth year of
02:03the Civil War, as a tale of lost opportunity, needless suffering and confused command gradually
02:09unfolded.
02:10A tale that somehow summed up the miseries of the war between the northern and southern
02:15states.
02:19This was an election year, and if the Confederacy could hold out until November and inflict
02:24some costly defeats on the Union forces, the chances of their old enemy, Abraham Lincoln,
02:30losing the election grew.
02:32With a new man as president and a public weary of war, Jefferson Davis might still be able
02:38to negotiate for a separate Confederacy.
02:42Lee is not fighting America right now.
02:46Lee is not fighting the United States right now.
02:50During the Battle of Petersburg, Lee is fighting Abe Lincoln.
02:54Lee is fighting to bring down the president in hopes that a democratic president will
03:01replace him, a democratic president who will end the war and leave the Confederacy alone.
03:09Frustrated by the lack of success in the East, Abraham Lincoln had appointed Ulysses
03:14S. Grant to command Union forces in Virginia, though this was not the same Union army that
03:20had begun the war.
03:23William Swinton, the Union army historian, wrote,
03:27The army of the Potomac, shaken to its structure, its valor quenched in blood, and thousands
03:33of its ablest officers killed and wounded, was the army of the Potomac no more.
03:43The march to Richmond began at the Battle of the Wilderness on the 5th of May, 1864,
03:48where Grant's losses were double those of the Confederacy.
03:52One week later, the forces clashed again at Spotsylvania, and once more the Union was
03:57heavily defeated.
04:01Grant's offensive approach was to cost him 7,000 casualties in 30 minutes, as he ordered
04:07a full frontal attack on the Confederate entrenchments at Cold Harbor.
04:12By the time the Union army marched away, these disastrous battles had cost 50,000 Union soldiers
04:18dead, wounded, or captured.
04:22Cold Harbor proves to Sam Grant that he can't just hack his way to Richmond.
04:29The effect of modern artillery, the effect of aimed rifle fire, the effect of improvised
04:37field fortifications is only just starting to become clear.
04:42This is the stuff that makes the First World War as horrible as it was, and in 1864, Sam
04:49Grant is learning it in Northern Virginia.
04:54So Grant can't just go to Richmond.
04:57He must find another way.
05:01Grant changed tactics and sought to outflank Lee.
05:05Rather than assault Richmond's formidable defenses, his target would be Petersburg.
05:10On the surface, a rather unremarkable town, but its railroads made it the lifeline of
05:15the Confederate capital.
05:19Petersburg is a railroad town, it's a railroad network, and the Confederate army at this
05:23time is a railroad army.
05:25They get around by railroad, and what's more important, they get their supplies by railroad.
05:30The railroads coming out of Petersburg link Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy,
05:37and the army of Northern Virginia to two very important areas.
05:40One is the Shenandoah Valley.
05:42This is the granary of the Confederacy.
05:45This is where you get the food that feeds the army of Northern Virginia.
05:49But also North Carolina, which is one of the last remaining areas that's under Confederate
05:55control.
05:57If these railroads are lost, Richmond is untenable and must fall.
06:04So it is, as it were, the Achilles' heel of the Richmond defenses, which have been developed
06:10fairly considerably over two years.
06:13If Petersburg falls, Richmond must also fall.
06:19On the 12th of June, the Union army left Cold Harbor and set out on their march to Petersburg.
06:25Eighty kilometers and the James River lay between Grant and his target.
06:30Remarkably, just 72 hours later, the first of Grant's forces had crossed the James over
06:35a hastily constructed pontoon bridge, and were advancing on the town.
06:41Heading the advance were 16,000 troops of the Army of the James, commanded by General
06:45William Smith.
06:47Supporting them in the Petersburg trenches was a force of fewer than 3,000 Confederates
06:53under General Pierre Beauregard.
06:59While he was aware of the threat that the Army of the Potomac under Major General George
07:02Meade posed to Petersburg, Lee still believed that Grant's real target might be Richmond,
07:08and rushed a force to its defense, leaving Beauregard horribly exposed and outnumbered.
07:14For the first time, it appeared Grant had succeeded in outwitting the wily Confederate
07:19commander.
07:21Grant had placed Smith's corps at the head of an advance that was well positioned to
07:24overwhelm the Confederate defenders.
07:28If the Union forces attacked swiftly, they would surely carry all before them, and for
07:33a few brief hours, it seemed to some that the end of the war was in sight.
07:40Smith's 18th Corps had arrived at Petersburg on the morning of the 15th of June.
07:45Instead of launching an attack, Smith decided that he must make a full reconnaissance of
07:49the line, and delay an assault until he was satisfied that the defenses could be taken.
07:54He eventually set 5pm as the time for the first attack.
07:58Unfortunately no one had thought to tell the corps artillery chief, who had sent the horses
08:03off to be watered.
08:05Without them, none of the heavy artillery could be moved into position.
08:11Finally at 7pm, the attack began.
08:14The Union troops swarmed towards the Confederate lines.
08:17They met with limited resistance from the small defending force, and by nightfall, Smith
08:22had taken 2km of trenches and 9 redoubts.
08:28Despite the delays, it seemed only a matter of time before Petersburg fell, leaving the
08:33road to Richmond clear.
08:36Instead of pressing the advantage, however, the cautious Smith called a halt to the attack.
08:42With the horror of Cold Harbor still fresh in his mind, he ordered his men to secure
08:47their positions and wait for reinforcements.
08:51Smith cannot just bash on into the rebel defenses because he can't count on the rebels being
08:59as thin on the ground as they are.
09:02When the rebel defenses easily give way in front of Smith's 18th Corps, he has got to
09:09assume it's a trap.
09:12Smith is like a whipped dog.
09:14He can't be aggressive because he's always wondering when the blow is going to fall.
09:22Smith can't be aggressive at Petersburg because he is a veteran of Cold Harbor.
09:28This failure to press advantage, this reluctance to deal with the unknown, to embrace the chaos
09:37of battle, that's a theme throughout the Union Army, actually throughout the Civil War, particularly
09:44in this campaign.
09:46And even bold generals like Sheridan find themselves hesitant in this campaign.
09:53Petersburg's defenses, though not as formidable as Richmond's, did have an extensive line
09:58of entrenchments known as the Dimmock Line.
10:01Joining the Appomattox River at one end, the 16 kilometers of earthworks formed a curve.
10:07The line contained 55 radans linked by a 1.8 meter high breastwork, which was 6 meters
10:13thick at its base.
10:14In front of the breastwork was a 4.5 meters wide, 1.8 meter deep ditch.
10:21Charlie Dimmock builds the Dimmock Line, which is a defensive perimeter around Petersburg.
10:27And the Dimmock Line is a very effective set of defenses.
10:33It's got 55 forts with interlocking fields of fire.
10:39So it is not only an obstacle, but it's an obstacle covered by fire, by mutually supporting
10:45fires.
10:46And that makes the Dimmock Line defending Petersburg very, very sound.
10:52The lines are largely composed of clay and other soft substances supported by ballast
11:00and by sand, but they're mainly earthworks, strengthened with abatis, a sort of forerunner
11:07of barbed wire in which trees, thorns and other unpleasant items are wrapped around
11:13them to form a clear-cut defensive position in front of the earthwork.
11:19Beyond the defenses were rifle pits for skirmishes.
11:22All cover for attackers had been cleared so that they would have to attack over half a
11:26mile of open ground.
11:29While these defenses were formidable, Grant did not intend a siege.
11:33His aim was to take Petersburg by storm.
11:36Now Grant did not intend a policy of attrition.
11:39He was essentially quite a humane man, and he, for example, refused to parole Confederate
11:44prisoners because he knew that would just put them back in the field and eventually
11:47get killed.
11:48What he saw was that by attacking everywhere at the same time, the South simply couldn't
11:52contend with those multiple federal attacks.
11:56However, circumstances on that first day were not on the Union side.
12:01Smith's reinforcements under Major General W.S.
12:03Hancock had been hampered by delays, including a five-hour wait for supplies that never arrived
12:08and a map which had sent him in completely the wrong direction.
12:14When Hancock and his 22,000-strong force arrived at 10.30, they were not in the best
12:19condition to press the advantage.
12:21His men, though, were desperate to push on, sensing perhaps that Petersburg could be theirs
12:26and realising that any delay would ultimately cost more of their number.
12:34We cursed them all that night, wrote one soldier, referring to the Union command.
12:39We could be here for months.
12:42The attack would have had to have been a joint attack.
12:44Smith was first on the ground.
12:46When Hancock arrived, he took his lead from Smith.
12:48Smith had been there for some time, knew the situation, and Hancock simply acquiesced in
12:53what Smith had decided.
12:55Beauregard, the Confederate commander, knew well that if the Union force had attacked,
13:00he could not hold the city with so few men.
13:03He later wrote,
13:04Petersburg at that hour was clearly at the mercy of the Federal commander, who had all
13:09but captured it, and only failed of final success because he could not realise the fact
13:15of the unparalleled disparity between the two contending forces.
13:19But this was a Union army which had been battered and bruised by the battles of the previous
13:23few weeks.
13:25And Smith reasoned that if he waited till morning, his force would swell to a hundred
13:29thousand men, surely enough to overwhelm the Confederates in the trenches beyond.
13:36When there is this reluctance to take risks that is throughout the Union army, one reason
13:44is that you have congressional committees that are looking over the shoulders of generals
13:50so that a general who succeeds may get a vote of thanks from Congress, but the general who
13:57fails finds himself subject to a congressional inquiry.
14:01This is a highly politicised army, and I think this is one of the reasons the northern
14:08commanders are so timid.
14:11Spared the expected Federal attack, a relieved Beauregard withdrew his men to a new line
14:16of defence that same night, and wired the Confederate war minister Braxton Bragg at
14:21Richmond, saying that unless reinforcement arrived from Lee, he would have to take Bushrod
14:26Johnson's men from the Howlett line.
14:30This was certainly a risky strategy, as they were holding back Major General Butler's Union
14:35force at the Bermuda Hundred, preventing it from dividing the Confederates and marching
14:40on Richmond.
14:41You can't be strong everywhere.
14:43If you try to be strong everywhere, you'll be weak everywhere.
14:48And that means that Beauregard can't try to be strong in Petersburg and the Bermuda Hundreds,
14:54so he pulls two divisions back into Petersburg, and he'll have those as a reserve to use
15:00either in Petersburg or in the Bermuda Hundreds.
15:05When he received no decisive word from the Confederate command, Beauregard ordered Johnson
15:10from the Howlett to the Petersburg lines.
15:13The arrival of Johnson and a division under Hoke brought the total of Confederate defenders
15:18to 12,000.
15:20While he remained unsure of Grant's real intentions, Lee immediately dispatched Pickett and Anderson's
15:26divisions to push Butler back at the Bermuda Hundred.
15:30The 16th and 17th saw more Union attacks, but they were as badly coordinated, and they
15:36too were beaten back by the newly arrived reinforcements.
15:41On the evening of the 17th, Beauregard, conscious that his luck might not hold out for much
15:46longer, retreated to a new inner line of defenses and sent an urgent message to General Lee,
15:52telling him that the last hour of the Confederacy has arrived.
15:57Lee's force had remained in a line from White Oak Swamp to Morven Hill defending Richmond,
16:02as he still had no guarantee that it wasn't Grant's main objective.
16:08Beauregard was in a different military department, so Lee did not have the ability to reinforce
16:13Beauregard without instructions from Braxton Bragg, who was the Confederate war minister.
16:18Lee was confronting Grant's army north of the James River, and he couldn't shift southwards
16:22to reinforce Beauregard's department until he was sure that Grant had moved southwards.
16:26Lee does not know what Grant's main effort is going to be.
16:33Lee knows that Grant is moving round the James River, but if Grant's main effort is still
16:42going to come directly north to south towards Richmond, then Lee cannot afford to thin out
16:50in the north.
16:52So Lee waits.
16:55Lee waits to see where Grant's main effort is going to be.
16:59And Lee will judge that by looking for where Grant himself is.
17:06In the early hours of the 18th, Beauregard sent Lee the confirmation he needed.
17:11Grant was on the field.
17:14General Meade was determined to launch a series of coordinated attacks and take the city at
17:18first light.
17:20Finally, Union troops stormed the positions according to their orders and took them with
17:25ease.
17:26The lines had been abandoned.
17:32Having no idea where their enemy had gone, it was not until midday that a coordinated
17:36plan was formulated and orders dispatched to Union troops.
17:41Major General Burney was the first to attack the newly located Confederate defences.
17:46He surged forward, but was firmly beaten back, suffering heavy losses.
17:51The Confederates had packed the shorter defences with artillery and were able to hold their
17:57position.
17:58In addition to the artillery, reinforcements had arrived in the form of Robert E. Lee and
18:02units of the Army of Northern Virginia.
18:06The defenders were so relieved that many of them wept.
18:11After the failed assault, many of the Union troops refused to fight on.
18:16The attack completely broke down and was cancelled.
18:21More assaults followed to the west on the 21st, but once again, command breakdowns cost
18:26the Union dear.
18:28Grant called off further attacks and prepared for a siege.
18:32The Petersburg campaign had so far cost the aggressive Union commander 11,386 men, bringing
18:40his total losses for two months to over 75,000.
18:45Sam Grant was, by instinct, an aggressive commander.
18:50One of his detractors said to Abe Lincoln once that Grant was mad.
18:55And Lincoln said, well, if he's mad, I wish he'd bite some other of my generals, make
19:00them mad too.
19:01He had an aggressive tactical instinct that had him drive on where other Union commanders
19:08had hesitated.
19:10And any time you look at Grant commanding, you don't look for clever tactics, you don't
19:16look for subtlety from Sam Grant, what you look for is aggression.
19:21Sam Grant knows what he wants to do and he drives on to do it.
19:25One key component of Grant's generalship is his obsession with always moving forward.
19:32If one examines the campaign in Virginia in May and June of 1864, no matter what the setbacks,
19:39Grant finds a way of moving on, to use his own term.
19:44He has an obsession with moving forward.
19:47And indeed, at the height of the crisis in May of 1864, he sends a message back to the
19:52President which is conveyed by a journalist which is very simple and clear, there will
19:56be no turning back.
20:00Petersburg was to be the first occasion during the Civil War that Grant and Lee had faced
20:04each other in the field.
20:08I think that Lee, like Grant, was a quite brilliant field commander, there's absolutely
20:14no doubt about that.
20:17Lee and Grant have quite a lot in common, despite their outwardly very different appearance
20:22and different manner.
20:24They both of them are essentially opportunist generals.
20:29They will make a manoeuvre, see what happens, move to exploit any advantages and dictate
20:35events.
20:36Lee was a brilliant leader, capable of inspiring an astonishing level of affection from his
20:43troops and Lee was a brilliant tactician.
20:50Lee was a sensitive tactician who was able to feel in his fingertips what tactical requirements
20:57were, not just at the basic tactical level, but at the grand tactical level, the level
21:03of moving cores around the countryside independently and then bringing them together and fighting
21:10united.
21:13Lee was, during the Civil War, starting to develop the rudiments of what we now call
21:19the operational art.
21:22Lee seeks to combine a sequence of tactical action artistically, one blow falling after
21:31the next in a way that does not allow the enemy to respond and concentrate against him.
21:37Lee is able to use this artistic sensitivity in order to bring the union over and over
21:45again near the tactical breaking point.
21:50Ever the clever tactician, Lee knew he would have to outthink Grant if the Confederacy
21:56were to escape its predicament.
21:58Lee sent Jubal Early to march on Washington.
22:02If Early could threaten Washington, he would draw men away from Petersburg or force Grant
22:07into making a Cold Harbour style assault on the Petersburg defences.
22:13While prepared to make such an assault at this stage, Grant dispatched forces to defend
22:17the Union capital.
22:20While Lee was plotting counter-moves to distract Grant, a Union engineer was planning an attack
22:26that he hoped would end the siege.
22:30Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pleasence believed it would be possible to mine under the Confederate
22:34works at a point known as Elliott's Salient and blow a devastating hole in the Confederate
22:39lines, allowing the Union force simply to march through the gap.
22:45He took his plan to Major General Ambrose Burnside, who in turn took it to Meade.
22:50The plan was approved by the High Command, who didn't entirely believe that it would
22:54work, but were keen to make the breakthrough.
22:58Coal miners from the 48th Pennsylvania Regiment began work on the 25th of June, and on the
23:0317th of July, the 154 metre shaft was completed.
23:09Work then began on the 23 metre powder chamber that would house the 3,600 kilograms of explosives.
23:17The Confederates, hearing the work of their Union foes beneath their feet, attempted to
23:21counter mine, but they eventually gave up, believing that a mine of that length could
23:27never be completed.
23:29On the 23rd it was.
23:32The powder was laid, and the fuses were attached to the massive magazine.
23:39Burnside's plan was to use the 1st Assault Division to attack around the hole in the
23:42lines created by the mine.
23:45They would then be able to fan out and expand the gap.
23:48The other three divisions were to advance across the Jerusalem plank road and on to
23:53Petersburg.
23:58Burnside had chosen the least experienced of his four divisions to lead the assault.
24:03Commanded by Brigadier General Edward Ferraro, the so-called Colour Division consisted of
24:08two all-black units, which had not yet seen front-line service.
24:14Ferraro rehearsed his men for a week behind the lines, and what they lacked in experience,
24:19they certainly made up for in enthusiasm.
24:23In support of Burnside's divisions, Grant ordered Warren and Smith's Corps to stand
24:28by, ready to press the advantage that was sure to come from the huge explosion.
24:33In addition, eighty field pieces, thirty-six siege guns and twenty-eight mortars were arranged
24:39on the enemy position.
24:42All that remained was to light the fuse, and Petersburg would be in Union hands by nightfall.
24:50As Burnside gathered his commanders on the 29th of July, a message came through from
24:55the Union command.
24:57Ferraro's men were to be replaced at the head of the attack by an all-white division.
25:03Grant later said of the decision, that if we put the coloured troops in front and it
25:07should prove a failure, it would then be said, and very properly, that we were shoving these
25:12people ahead to get killed, because we did not care anything about them.
25:16But that could not be said if we put white troops out in front.
25:21Meade persuaded Grant not to use Ferraro's division because of the use of black troops.
25:29He warned that should Burnside's military record of failure be confirmed yet again,
25:36then the use of black troops in a disastrous military operation would be used against Grant
25:41to discredit him in Washington, D.C., and that it was politically dangerous.
25:47And eventually, Grant accepted this advice.
25:52Meade thinks that if he sends African-Americans in, they're not going to fight as well as
25:56white men would, and they're going to lose.
26:00After the war, U.S. Grant is involved in Republican politics, and he is unable to admit that.
26:06And after the war, Grant makes a big show of saying that he didn't want to sacrifice
26:12those people, that is African-Americans, and if he sent white soldiers in, then he couldn't
26:19be accused of saying, that's nonsense.
26:22George Meade doesn't trust African-American soldiers to fight.
26:29Inevitably, Ferraro was furious, and Burnside, who was stunned by the order, did not know
26:34what to do.
26:36Unable to decide which of his divisions to deploy as a replacement for Ferraro's well-drilled
26:40men, he got his commanders to draw straws.
26:45The short straw, perhaps for the Union Army as much as the commander, went to Brigadier
26:50General James Ledley.
26:53Ledley was the least experienced of the three remaining commanders, and his division was
26:57made up largely of gunners and dismounted cavalry.
27:03Burnside's two other divisions, led by Potter and Wilcox, were to attack behind Ledley,
27:07with the disgruntled Ferraro last in the line.
27:13With the troops in position, Pleasance entered the mine just after 3 a.m. to light the fuse.
27:21All stood by, as 3.30 a.m., the allotted time for the explosion, approached.
27:27However, 3.30 came and went without incident.
27:32At 4.30, Pleasance's mine boss, Henry Rees, went to check on the fuse.
27:38Believing that the mine was a failure, Grant ordered the attack to begin anyway.
27:43Before this order reached the frontline troops, however, the fuse was repaired, and at 4.44
27:49the world erupted.
27:53A massive column of Confederate earth shot into the air, carrying men, guns, and the
27:59fabric of the defences with it.
28:04Instead of attacking, Ledley's frightened men ran for cover.
28:09While the troops were reassembled, the full extent of the mine's destruction was surveyed.
28:14The crater it had left was 52 metres long, 18 metres across and 9 metres deep.
28:20152 metres of defences had been obliterated, and 278 defenders were casualties of the massive
28:26explosion.
28:28The mine shattered.
28:30It paralysed the Confederate defence.
28:33There is no doubt that the road to Petersburg was open, and the explosion of the mine should
28:40have therefore realised the full promise that Burnside had claimed for it.
28:44It should have been perhaps one of the decisive moments of the war.
28:49When the troops finally advanced, they discovered that Burnside had failed to remove the defensive
28:54obstacles in front of his own positions.
28:57The men were forced to pick their way through a narrow, hastily cleared corridor.
29:04The lead troops advanced as far as the crater's edge, but instead of fanning out, they stopped
29:09to look at the devastation before them.
29:12Not helped by the pushing hordes behind them, and completely forgetting their orders, when
29:17the head of the column eventually moved, it merely staggered forward into the crater and
29:22began to pull defenders out of the mud.
29:25Waves of men followed suit, and soon the crater was full of confused Union and dazed Confederate
29:31troops.
29:32Unfortunately, Ledley was not on hand to reorganise his men, as he was drunk in a bomb-proof bunker
29:38behind the lines.
29:41As the smoke cleared, the defenders, who had not been blown heavenward, regained their
29:46composure and returned to their trenches, which had been the Union's for the taking
29:51only moments before.
29:53The delay which this ensued, with troops packing up behind them, permitted the Confederates
30:00to rally the defence, and there is no doubt that the Confederates rallied and took decisions
30:08far more rapidly than their Union counterparts did to exploit their advantage.
30:15Unfortunately, General Ledley was not there to give orders.
30:20He had not given orders to his subordinates, so Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels all issued
30:26orders on their own initiative, and these were frequently contradictory.
30:29The result was utter chaos.
30:32The Confederate guns were now trained on the crater, and were simply obliterating the Union
30:37troops inside.
30:42What the Union troops should have done is go around the lips of the crater, but not
30:46into the crater itself.
30:48But you have troops who have been accustomed to seeking shelter.
30:54They've been facing bullets for months, in some cases years.
30:57They habitually seek shelter, and without proper instruction, without proper leadership,
31:03they crowd into the crater, and the crater becomes a firesack, a death trap.
31:09It is something where the Confederate guns, the Confederate mortars, and the Confederate
31:12rifles wreak havoc.
31:14At 9.30, seeing that the situation was spiralling out of control, Grant and Meade cancelled
31:20the next wave of attacks, and ordered the troops to return to the lines.
31:25Burnside, paralysed by the enormity of what was happening before him, did not pass the
31:30order to the troops until half-past twelve.
31:33Within an hour and a half, all those Federal troops that had survived the slaughter, had
31:40surrendered.
31:42The botched attack had cost Burnside's division 3,828 men.
31:47Hardest hit were Ferrero's division, for whom surrender was not an option.
31:531,327 were lost, a third of their strength.
31:59When the Confederate counterattack went in, the Confederates were infuriated to find that
32:04black troops had gone into action against them, and there was a certain amount of brutality
32:08in the way the Black Federal troops, particularly those who surrendered, were treated.
32:13The coloured troops themselves, however, felt generally to have behaved very well in action,
32:17and this was part of a slow process in convincing the Union army that the black troops would
32:23fight well.
32:25Not only had a gilt-edged opportunity been wasted, but the Confederate lines were also
32:29quickly re-established, as strong and formidable as they ever were.
32:34Grant called it, the saddest affair I have ever witnessed in war.
32:40The shockwaves from the mine attack were felt at all levels.
32:44Ledley was dismissed, and Burnside resigned after a furious row with Meade.
32:49Nine days later, the Confederacy had its revenge for the mine explosion.
32:53The saboteurs blew up an ammunition barge at City Point, near Grant's headquarters.
32:59War materials worth $2 million were lost to the Union, and 169 men were killed or wounded.
33:07The failure of Smith's initial attack, and the disaster of the crater, condemned all
33:12those around Petersburg, soldiers and civilians alike, to the longest and most protracted
33:18of all Civil War sieges.
33:20The struggle for the town dragged on into the autumn, and Grant switched his strategy
33:25to attacking Lee's fragile supply lines to the south of Petersburg.
33:30In more than a dozen actions, Grant's men succeeded in ripping up large stretches of
33:35track, but endless command breakdowns and fierce counter-attacks by Lee's men, particularly
33:41General A.P. Hill, meant that neither side gained the upper hand.
33:47In any siege, there is a trade-off between the person who is defending a particular point
33:53and the person who is attacking.
33:55Who has the dominating role?
33:58In this particular case, Grant was dictating the siege because of his aim, his ambition
34:05to get at the railroad junction at Petersburg.
34:08Lee knew well that if he lost the railroad junction at Petersburg, the only way he could
34:13then fight to save Richmond was to come out into the open and fight Grant's much larger
34:18army in open battle, which he would almost certainly lose.
34:22Despite huge Union losses, Grant still maintained a massive numerical advantage, and the beleaguered
34:28Lee knew it.
34:29He wrote to Jefferson Davis,
34:31The enemy's position enables him to move his troops to the right or left without our knowledge
34:36until he has reached the point at which he aims, and we are then compelled to hurry our
34:40men to meet him, incurring the risk of being too late to check his progress.
34:48Lincoln had advised Grant to hold on with a bulldog grip and chew and choke as much
34:53as possible.
34:56Jubal Early's diversionary attacks were long since over, and Confederate hopes of Lincoln
35:00being defeated in the November elections had been dashed.
35:04Union successes had sent positive signs to the electorate.
35:08While the onset of winter made offensive moves less of a threat to Lee, the weather
35:12and a lack of supplies meant the conditions were very rough for the defending army.
35:17The artillery fire would be pretty constant, particularly with mortars firing into the
35:21rear areas.
35:23The trenches on the Confederate side were in a much worse state, partly because of lack
35:27of supplies, lack of provisions.
35:29The soldiers were hungry, they were ill-fed, ill-catered for.
35:35If they were wounded, they would go back into Petersburg itself, where the conditions
35:40were quite poor.
35:42The daily ration for the Confederate soldier was one pint of cornmeal and two ounces of
35:47bacon, both of very poor quality.
35:50Many of the starving men were also without shoes.
35:54As the winter months wore on, the January rains further disrupted supplies to Richmond.
35:59By this time, the Confederate forces are very, very ragged.
36:05Their supply situation is appalling.
36:09There is a tremendous problem in the Confederate army with ordinary infectious disease, typhus,
36:14but there's also a problem with supply-related disease, scurvy.
36:19You have got in the Confederate army a sick army, a hungry army, a badly dressed army,
36:28and a poorly supplied army.
36:30The Confederate forces are not able to supply their soldiers with the material they need
36:36to go on living, much less to go on fighting.
36:42Ammunition too was in short supply.
36:44While the Union soldier was able to fire a hundred rounds a day, the Confederate could
36:48only fire eighteen.
36:50The defenders were reduced to foraging for fragments of metal to fire at the enemy.
36:56Desertion rates grew steadily as the siege progressed.
37:00Lee's total force came to 57,000 men, compared to Grant's 124,000.
37:06Lee wrote to his president,
37:07''Unless we obtain a reasonable approximation of a force, I feel a great calamity will befall
37:13us.''
37:15Jefferson Davis replied,
37:17''No other resource remains.''
37:22February saw renewed Federal assaults to the south of the Petersburg defenses, and the
37:27lines were extended still further west.
37:31As Abraham Lincoln and William T. Sherman arrived at Grant's HQ on 25 March 1865, Lee
37:38launched an attack on Fort Steadman.
37:41It was to be the last offensive that Lee's army would ever fight.
37:47The purpose of the attack was to buy the Confederacy some time.
37:51Lee had met President Jefferson Davis in early March to warn him that Richmond might have
37:55to be abandoned.
37:57Lee's plan was to move south to meet up with General Joe Johnson, whose army was in North
38:02Carolina, before Sherman and Sheridan could join forces around Petersburg.
38:07Obviously, such a move would strip the defenses and allow Grant to march unopposed into Richmond.
38:15Why at Fort Steadman, rather than any other point of the line?
38:18Mainly because it's on the Ninth Corps front, that corps which had mounted the crater operation
38:23and was the least respected in the army of the Potomac.
38:29And he gives the task to John B. Gordon.
38:31And Gordon comes up with, within limits, an imaginative plan.
38:35He first of all sends special squads at nighttime to open avenues of advance.
38:42Once these are identified, he then sends other squads of axemen with their axes and hatchets
38:48to chop away at the abatis and the other obstructions, so that when the infantry moved forward, they
38:54could pass through without difficulty.
38:58At 3 a.m., General John B. Gordon led the attack, taking the fort and the two batteries
39:03on either side.
39:05They began to press further right and left, but batteries 9 and 12 stood firm.
39:10Without these, the gap could not be widened, and the Confederates were subjected to heavy
39:15fire from both sides.
39:18Lee called off the attack and ordered a retreat.
39:21The failed strategy had cost Lee 3,500 men, a tenth of his army, while Grant had lost
39:29only a thousand.
39:31Grant now sent Fighting Philip Sheridan, supported by Warren and Humphreys, to ride behind Lee
39:37and halt any retreat from Richmond.
39:42On hearing the news of Sheridan's move, Lee sent General George Pickett to five forks
39:47on the White Oak Road to protect the vital rail link.
39:51Pickett successfully drove the force back to the Dinwiddie Courthouse.
39:56On the 1st of April, Pickett, confident that he had sufficiently disrupted the Union attack
40:01plans, put his men in a line along the White Oak Road and went to lunch.
40:07In his absence, all hell broke loose.
40:11Sheridan's men attacked.
40:13Sheridan, exhorting his men to move forward, overran the Confederate works.
40:18Demoralised and leaderless, more than 5,000 Confederates were killed, wounded or taken
40:23prisoner.
40:25The result of this decisively organised attack on the part of Sheridan is the complete destruction
40:32of the Confederate right.
40:34Both the road junctions and, more importantly, the South Side Railroad, the key link to Lynchburg
40:42and the West, is now at the mercy of the Union army.
40:46A daybreak on the 2nd of April, after a night bombardment, a massive force of 60,000 Union
40:54troops launched themselves at the 12-mile southern line of the Petersburg defences.
41:00A.P. Hill, one of Lee's most able and trusted generals, who had defended that part of the
41:05line for so long, was shot and killed during the fighting.
41:11All along the south-west line, the defences were overrun, and Lee ordered the evacuation
41:16of Petersburg and Richmond.
41:18Lee needed to hold off the advance for long enough, to allow his troops from north of
41:22the James River to arrive.
41:26At noon, Lee ordered 500 men into Forts Gregg and Whitworth, with instructions to hold out
41:31for two hours.
41:33The force they faced under the command of John Gibbon totalled 6,000 men.
41:38Wave after wave attacked, but were beaten back.
41:41Reinforced with a further 2,000 men, Gibbon attacked again, and Fort Gregg finally fell,
41:47three hours after the fighting had begun.
41:50The resistance had bought Lee the time he had needed, and he began the evacuation of
41:54his troops along the Richmond and Danville Railroad.
41:59Abandoned, Richmond burned.
42:02On April 4th, Abraham Lincoln was sitting at Jefferson Davis' desk in the Confederate
42:07White House.
42:08After 293 days, the siege of Petersburg was over.
42:13The race to capture Lee had begun.
42:18As March gave way to April, the end of the Great Civil War seemed in sight.
42:24Everywhere the south looked, there was bad news.
42:27During the winter months, Atlanta and Savannah had fallen, and General Sherman had made good
42:32his promise to make Georgia howl.
42:37The Confederate defeat at Nashville had all but ended the war in the west.
42:41The Union Army had rampaged through the Carolinas.
42:48What is left for the Confederacy once they have lost Atlanta, and Richmond, and Mobile,
42:56Alabama, and Nashville, Tennessee?
42:58What is left for the Confederacy?
43:02You can move the capital wherever you like.
43:05If the economic heart of the Confederacy is gone, then all you become is a rabble of rebels.
43:15So once the 1864 election is over, Lincoln is still in power, Lincoln is determined to
43:23prosecute the war, and there's nothing that Robert Lee can do to win.
43:31On the 6th of April, the retreating Army of Northern Virginia ran up against Union
43:35forces under Humphreys, Wright, and Sheridan.
43:38The encounter prompted Sheridan to write to Grant,
43:40If the thing is pressed, I think Lee will surrender.
43:45After the Battle of Petersburg, the defeat of the Confederacy is really only a matter
43:50of time.
43:51The south has no more options.
43:53It cannot act anymore, it can merely react.
43:58Lee's men were now starving.
44:00The rations that he was expecting to feed them when they arrived at Amelia Courthouse
44:04had not materialized.
44:07Lee pressed on west in the hope of outrunning his federal pursuers, but by the 8th it was
44:12clear that he would not make it.
44:15When he reached Appomattox Courthouse, he had the Union Army to his north and south.
44:20His exhausted force totaled less than 13,000 men.
44:25On the 9th of April, 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia
44:31to Ulysses S. Grant.
44:34The generous terms he received allowed the men to keep their horses and the officers
44:39to keep their swords.
44:41The Army was paroled, and a few days later, the remaining rebel forces laid down their
44:46arms.
44:47The impact of the Siege of Petersburg clearly is of major importance to the final denouement
44:54of the war, of the pursuit of Lee westwards from Richmond, ultimately to his surrender
45:00at Appomattox.
45:01The important factor here to bear in mind is that when this evacuation of Richmond begins,
45:06with Lee very keen to get as far as Danville and then Lynchburg, in his desperate effort
45:11to join up with Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina, that Grant's armies are actually
45:17further west and have less distance to travel than the Confederate armies.
45:23And this is the major advantage that Grant enjoys in this final climactic campaign.
45:30I think the outcome was never in doubt because of the fervent desire in the North to maintain
45:35the Union.
45:37The South pinned its hopes on a quick victory of the Union not having the energy, the commitment
45:46to take heavy losses to maintain the legal state of the Union.
45:51The South thought they were acting quite legally by seceding from the Union, of course.
45:55The North's view was that it was an illegal rebellion.
45:58The South also pinned their hopes upon foreign recognition, which I think was never going
46:01to come because it was a slave state.
46:04And in my view, there was no chance that the South would win short of a catastrophic failure
46:09of nerve in the North.
46:12The country was united once more.
46:15But less than a week after the surrender, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.