BGuthrie Photos: VA -- Petersburg Natl Battlefield -- Western Front

VA -- Petersburg Natl Battlefield -- Western Front:

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. PETERW_130919_013.JPG: This stone marks the spot where the old men and boys of Petersburg under Gen. R. E. Colston and Col. F. H. Archer 125 strong on June 9th, 1864 Distinguished themselves in fight with 1300 Federal cavalry under Gen. Kautz, gaining time for the defeat of the expedition.
2. PETERW_130919_030.JPG: Erected by the surviving comrades, school children and citizens of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, and dedicated to the memory of the dead of the 48th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers. Col. George W. Gowen, killed in action in front of Fort Mahone, April 2nd, 1865 aged 25 years.
3. PETERW_130919_040.JPG: 48th Regt. Penn. Vet. Vol. Inf. 1st Brig. 2nd Div. Burnside's 9th A.C. Mustered in September 30, 1861 Mustered out July 17, 1865
4. PETERW_130919_054.JPG: Some of this graffiti is from 1921
5. PETERW_130919_159.JPG: Lincoln In Petersburg Tears at Fort Mahone On the morning of April 3, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln awoke at City Point to the news that Petersburg had fallen just hours before. He immediately arranged to visit the city and meet with Gen. Ulysses S. Grant that morning. Lincoln and his party, including his son Tad and Adm. David Porter, arrived south of here at Hancock Station on the U.S. Military Railroad at about 10 A.M. Riding on horseback north along the Jerusalem Plank Road (present-day Crater Road), the group stopped at the abandoned Confederate fortifications along the Dimmock Line. Here Lincoln climbed the parapet of Fort Mahone, also called Fort Damnation (on Walnut Hill Elementary School site), one of the strongest points in the lines. The Union IX Corps assault had taken place here the previous day. Many bloated bodies, both Union and Confederate, still lay sprawled about. Among them were members of Union Gen. Charles H.T. Collis's colorful 114th Pennsylvania Regiment (Zouaves), whom Lincoln had seen on guard duty at City Point earlier in the week. A cavalryman in the escort saw tears streaming down Lincoln's cheeks. His bodyguard, William Crook, noticed that Lincoln's face had "settled into its old lines of sadness" over the war's enormous cost in human lives and suffering. His expression soon brightened, however, when he entered the city to the cheers of Union soldiers and rode to the Thomas Wallace House to see Grant. In March 1865, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant invited President Abraham Lincoln to visit him at City Point for a respite from the capital as the 9�-month-Iong siege of Petersburg neared its end. Lincoln joined him on March 24. They held meetings, reviewed the army, and toured fortifications. On April 3, the day the Federals occupied Richmond and Petersburg, Lincoln and Grant held their last meeting in Petersburg. Lincoln visited Richmond the next day. He returned to Washington on April 9 as Grant accepted the surrender of Gen. Robert E. Lee's army at Appomattox Court House.
6. PETERW_130919_196.JPG: Fort Davis Union Stronghold After four days of unsuccessful trying to capture Petersburg by direct assault on June 15-18, 1864, Gen. U.S. Grant's Union army began siege operations against the city. Grant's immediate objective was to cut one of Gen. Robert E. Lee's supply routes, the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad. Moving westward against the rail line in this area June 21-23, Union forces were stopped short of reaching their goal. They were able, though, to extend their trench lines across the Jerusalem Plank Road, now known as Crater Road. To protect this position, construction began on a large earthen structure initially called Fort Warren, Named for Fifth Corps commander, Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren. One of the Union soldiers assigned to this task recalled: "Covering about three acres of ground, it is capable of holding a brigade…. In building our fort, we dug a trench twenty feet wide and ten feet deep, and threw up the rampart on the inside. The fort was made square with a diagonal through it. We had a magazine in it, and two wells were dug for a water supply…it took eight men to get one shovelful of dirt from the bottom of the ditch to the top of the work, the men standing in little nitches cut in the side of the bank and passing the earth from one to another." The completed fort held a garrison of 550 men with eight field guns. On July 11, while sitting nearby with the surgeon of the 39th Massachusetts Infantry, Col. P. Stearns Davis of the same unit was mortally wounded by a piece of exploding artillery shell. The fort was then renamed in his honor.
7. PETERW_130919_212.JPG: Fort Hays A Silent Witness The land on which Fort Hays is built was fought over on June 22, 1864, when the Union army first attempted to cut one of Lee's vital rail supply lines, the Petersburg Railroad (usually called the Weldon Railroad) located about three miles west. While the Federals were unsuccessful then in what is known as the Battle of Jerusalem Plank Road, they did gain ground here and began entrenching. Fort Hays was constructed between August 26 and September 7 after Union victories on August 18-21 in the Second Battle of Weldon Railroad (Globe Tavern). The fort, built to handle ten field guns, held four cannons and a 300-man garrison. Most forts in the Federal siege lines around Petersburg were named posthumously for Union officers who either died in nearby fighting or during the preceding campaign. Fort Hays was named for Gen. Alexander Hays, a native of Pennsylvania, who graduated from West Point in the class of 1844. He served in the Mexican War and afterward became a construction engineer. When the Civil War began, he became colonel of the 63rd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. He was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers on September 29, 1862, after suffering a severe wound in the Second Battle of Manassas. Hayes rejoined the army in June 1863 and led a II Corps division at Gettysburg with conspicuous gallantry. He was killed on May 5, 1864, west of Fredericksburg in the Battle of the Wilderness near the intersection of Brock Road and Orange Plank Road. He is buried in Allegheny Cemetery, Pittsburgh.
8. PETERW_130919_243.JPG: Siege of Petersburg -- Grant's Fourth Offensive August 18-21, 1864 -- Battle of Weldon Railroad Union General Ulysses S. Grant pursued a strategy of two-pronged attacks on Petersburg and the Confederate capital at Richmond. Grant first attacked Lee's positions around Richmond and struck again south of Petersburg. By the end of Grant's fourth offensive, Lee's supply lines had been bent but not broken. August 14-18, 1864 -- Confederate forces repulse the Union attack on this line. Forces from both sides return south to support the fighting below Petersburg. August 18-21, 1864 -- As the fighting at Richmond fades, Union troops swing south and sever the critical Petersburg (& Weldon) Railroad. August 25, 1864 -- Union troops tried to extend their lines along the railroad to Reams Station but were defeated and swept back by the Confederates.
9. PETERW_130919_251.JPG: Fight for the Weldon Railroad After failing to bludgeon his way into Petersburg in June and July, Grant decided to strangle the city instead. His plan: cut the railroads into Petersburg - cut the Confederate's lifelines. On August 18, Maj. Gen. Gouverneur Warren's Union Fifth Corps seized the Petersburg & Weldon Railroad here near Globe Tavern. The Confederates retaliated, but after three days of fighting, the Union grip on the railroad remained unshaken. The Federals (facing north) fought from earthworks on August 21. The works shown here stood just a few yards south of (behind) you. The Buck House, on the left of the painting, was dismantled during the construction of Fort Wadsworth a few weeks later. August 19: Confederates under Maj. Gen. William Mahone demolished Warren's right - east of the railroad - and captured 2,500 Federals. Only timely reinforcements prevented Union disaster. Two days later, after Warren had pulled back and entrenched around Globe Tavern, the Confederates attacked again. This time the Federals repulsed them easily - and bloodily.
10. PETERW_130919_260.JPG: Fort Wadsworth Built following the Battle of the Weldon Railroad in August 1864, Fort Wadsworth anchored the extreme left of the Union siege lines for more than a month. It secured the the Union grip on the Petersburg & Weldon Railroad - a major Confederate supply line. The fort's size reflects its importance during August and September of 1864. Duty here was easier than in the works on the right of the line; the closest Confederates were nearly a mile away.
11. PETERW_130919_276.JPG: Hagood's Brigade A.N.V. -- C.S.A. -- Here a brigade composed of the 7th battalion, the 11th, 21st, 25th and 27th regiments South Carolina Volunteers, commanded by Brig. Gen. Johnson Hagood, charged Warren's Federal Army Corps, on the 21st day of August 1864, taking into the fight 749 men, retiring with 273. No prouder fate than theirs who gave their lives to liberty.
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Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (VA -- Petersburg Natl Battlefield -- Western Front) directly related to this one: [Display ALL photos on one page]:
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2013 photos: Trips this year: three Civil War Trust conferences (Memphis, TN, Jackson, MS [to which I added a week to to visit sites in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee], and Richmond, VA), and my 8th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including sites in Nevada and California). Ego Strokes: Aviva Kempner used my photo of her as her author photo in Larry Ruttman's "American Jews & America's Game: Voices of a Growing Legacy in Baseball" book. Equipment this year: I mostly used my Fuji XS-1 camera but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000 and Nikon D600. Number of photos taken this year: just over 570,000.
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