{"id":2800,"date":"2010-07-13T10:39:19","date_gmt":"2010-07-13T15:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/?p=2800"},"modified":"2010-07-13T10:57:00","modified_gmt":"2010-07-13T15:57:00","slug":"battle-of-petersburg-june-15-18-1864","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/2010\/07\/13\/battle-of-petersburg-june-15-18-1864\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle of Petersburg: June 15-18, 1864"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Battle of Petersburg, also known as the Assault on Petersburg, took place from June 15-18, 1864 in the city of Petersburg<\/a>, Virginia.\u00a0 Led by Union General Ulysses S. Grant<\/a>,\u00a0the Union forces left Cold Harbor and attacked the Confederate forces under the command of General Pierre Beauregard<\/a>.\u00a0 General William F.\u00a0Smith\u2019s<\/a> failure to take advantage of the low number of Confederate forces initially present allowed General Robert E. Lee\u00a0<\/a>to send reinforcements and the Confederates were able to defend Petersburg from capture.\u00a0 This battle marked the beginning of the siege of Petersburg.\u00a0 The National Park Service\u2019s website includes an overview<\/a>\u00a0on the opening of the fighting as well as short biographies<\/a>\u00a0 on the commanding officers for each army.\u00a0 The website also offers lesson plans<\/a>, travel trunks<\/a>, and information for teachers on planning a field trip <\/a>to the battleground.\u00a0 The Civil War Preservation Trust\u2019s website\u00a0<\/a> provides a list for recommended reading, historical articles, and quick facts on the Battle of Petersburg.\u00a0 Beauregard commented<\/a>\u00a0 on the mistakes of the Union forces that prevented the capture of Petersburg:<\/p>\n

\u201cStrange to say, General Smith contented himself with breaking into our lines, and attempted nothing further that night.\u00a0 All the more strange was this inaction on his part, since General Hancock, with his strong and well-equipped Second Army Corps, had also been hurried to Petersburg, and was actually there, or in the immediate vicinity of the town, on the evening of the 15th.\u00a0 He had informed General Smith of the arrival of his command and the readiness of his two divisions- Birney\u2019s and Gibbon\u2019s- to give him whatever assistance he might require.\u00a0 Petersburg at that hour was clearly at the mercy of the Federal commander, who had all but captured it, and only failed of final success because he could not realize the fact of the unparalleled disparity between the two contending forces.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some other resources that may be useful are\u00a0Armistead Long’s\u00a0Memoirs of Robert E. Lee: His Military and Personal History<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>and Ulysses S. Grant\u2019s Personal Memoirs<\/a><\/em>\u00a0which could provide\u00a0opposing views of the Battle of Petersburg from the\u00a0Union and Confederate commanding\u00a0generals.\u00a0 In terms of modern scholarship, James McPherson\u2019s Battle Cry of Freedom<\/a><\/em>\u00a0is available as a preview on Google Books and contains a concise summary of the events of the battle.\u00a0 The Battle of Petersburg could be related to a lesson on black soldiers and their role in the Civil War as the 6th and 43rd United States Colored Troop\u00a0<\/a> Regiments either fought in this particular battle or in the following battles during the siege of Petersburg.\u00a0 The National Park Service also\u00a0provides an article<\/a>\u00a0on black soldiers at the siege which may be helpful to browse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Battle of Petersburg, also known as the Assault on Petersburg, took place from June 15-18, 1864 in the city of Petersburg, Virginia.\u00a0 Led by Union General Ulysses S. Grant,\u00a0the Union forces left Cold Harbor and attacked the Confederate forces under the command of General Pierre Beauregard.\u00a0 General William F.\u00a0Smith\u2019s failure to take advantage of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,82,47,174],"tags":[161],"class_list":["post-2800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-war-1861-1865","category-lesson-plans","category-places-to-visit","category-recent-scholarship","tag-battles-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2800"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2809,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2800\/revisions\/2809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}