general pgt beauregard

Simple attrition. Grant had ended the system of prisoner exchange, so the Confederates were bound to run out of men first. Then he simply battered away at Lee's army till his lines grew too thin to hold.

Union General Butler's failed offensive in Virginia added damaged public morale in the North. This was amplified by the fact that Grant's decision to place Petersburg under siege added to the problem. Militarily, a siege is considered a successful strategy as a result of an offensive victory in battle. Grant's heavy casualties and lack of success against Lee left the Union's public with no tangible evidence of success. Grant's reputation was damaged by his operations in Virginia that forced him into the siege of Petersburg.

There was no Siege of Pittsburgh in the Civil War, and Lee was not present at Pittsburgh Landing, Tennessee, also known as Shiloh.

From June 19, 1864, Petersburg was effectively under siege by the Union army. This city was important because Richmond had been able to receive supplies from that city.

The Confederate capital of Richmond was able to remain supplied with most of what it needed throughout most of the US Civil War. This was due in part by the five railroad lines that ran from Petersburg to Richmond.

The Siege of Petersburg was important because it displayed the value of excellent fortifications. The Confederate entrenchments were able to prevent the Federals from capturing Petersburg and cutting Richmond off from the vital supplies it needed. When the siege was finally ended after nine months of Union operations to take the city, it signaled that the US Civil War was only days from its end.

Petersburg was a valuable southern link to the Confederate capital of Richmond. In early June of 1864, troops under the command of Lieutenant General US Grant, made large assaults at what he considered to be the weakest links in the Confederate fortifications . On June 16th and 17th, these assaults were turned back by the Confederates. At that point General Lee sent troops to reinforce Petersburg and he himself took charge of the city's defense. After continued assaults, General Grant believed he could not break through the fortifications and decided to place the city under siege, much like he did at Vicksburg. Resigned to the fact that a battle victory was useless, Grant ordered his forces to entrench themselves around the city's fortifications. The siege would last 10 months.

She Did Not serve in the War, she was a Nurse to the soldiers DURING the war.

The US Civil War siege of Petersburg was important in a number of ways:

1. Despite overwhelming odds, the North was unable to break through the elaborate fortification system devided by General Robert E. Lee and his generals;

2. The key to the capture of Petersburg would lead to the fall of Richmond as the supply route by rail and road ran from Petersburg to Richmond;

3. As with Petersburg, the fortifications of Richmond were designed perfectly;

4. One Union plan to break the siege on Petersburg was a tunnel under the fortifications. That failed; and

5. It took ten months but the siege was finally a success.

After the failed attempt to take Petersburg by assault carried on June 15, 1864 by the Xviii Corps of the Army of the Potomac, the battle became a siege, that gave the start to a trench warfare like that one fought on the Western Front of the WW1.

The entrenched lines of both sides was slowly but constantly

extended southward and then southwest, for the Union Army was attempting to interrupt the vital railroads which granted the flux of supplies and reinforcements to the defensive system Richmond - Petersburg, while the Confederate Army was acting in order to prevent the enemy from reaching that goal.

Therefore we cannot define the battle a stalemate but rather a progressive, inevitable shift towards the break of the relative tactical balance between the two armies, due to the great superiority in terms of numbers and resources of Grant's Army upon Lee's.

ANSWER

The Union army of the Potomac was the victor at the battle of Petersburg.

After the setback of the Battle of Crater, Grant extended the siege lines south and southwest of the beleaguered city. The front remained stabilized.

After Lee's failed offensive against Fort Stedman in March 1865, Grant seized again the initiatives extending the siege lines farther and farther westward, attempting to outflank Lee's right wing and threaten the Boydton Plank road, until the Confederates defences stretched so far that they could be no more adequately manned.

That led Lee, after the decisive defeat of Five Forks on april 1 and the penetration of the Confederate positions between Petersburg and Five Forks the following day, to order the evacuation of both Petersburg and Richmond to avoid of being encircled.

The Federals suffered 42,000 casualties, the Confederate 28,000.

The purpose was that of keep Lee pinned down to defend the defensive system Richmond-Petersburg, depriving him of his freedom of movement and managing to make his army collapse.

The goal was reached as follows:

1 - by starting a war of position characterized by a slow, slight but continuous lengthening of the entrenchments south and then westward:

the Northerners attempting to outflank the enemy defense system and aiming to interrupt the vital railroads securing the flux of supply, indispensable to maintain the Confederates' war effort;

the Southerners managing to stop the menace, extending their net of entrenchments.

Every prolongation of the entrenchment was marked by violent fighting or local battles which cost heavy casualties to both sides, with but no decisive outcome.

2 - It was also a war of attrition consciously carried forward by Grant, regardless of how heavy the losses of men and materials could be.

Indeed that was the right way to go to annihilate Lee's Army, because the Union casualties, though generally higher than those of the Confederates who mainly fought on the defensive, were much easier to replace than Lee's.

This situation was getting worse after Sherman's "March to the Sea" had been carried out, interrupting the reinforcements from the Carolinas, and led to the collapse of the Army of the Northern Virginia.

On April 2, 1865, Lee was forced to evacuate Richmond and, in the following day, Petersburg, whose siege was over after about nine months of bloody struggle.

Appomattox Court House is located about 190 kilometers west of Richmond.

The Battle of Petersburg began on June 15, 1864, with the investment of the city by the Union's XVIII Corps, which managed to cross undetected over the River James, soon followed by the bulk of the Army of the Potomac.

Thanks to the excessively cautious way with which the assault of general Smith's 13,700 men was carried on, the 3,000 Confederate defenders under Beauregard were able to repulse the attack.

Petersburg was then increasingly reinforced by the Confederate units and its siege, which lasted about 9 months, began.

They were on the defensive. Grant had got them pinned down, and was simply batering away at their lines till they grew too thin to hold.