Petersburg - Part 1 - The Siege

The morning of the third day of my trip, Groundhog day Feb 2nd,  found me staying at a hotel in Hopewell just east of Petersburg.  Since I wanted to be traveling west towards Appomattox Court House I thought I was in the wrong part of town. It turned out I was dead wrong.

 To understand why I'll go back  to what happened in 1864. In May 1864 Grant crossed the Rapidan River near Chancellorsville in North-West Virginia.  His objective was the destruction of Lee's Army of North Virginia. Starting with the Battle of the Wilderness, Grant and Lee fought a series of battles which while inconclusive were simply battles of flanking actions and attrition. Grant ,with an army twice the size of Lee's, could afford such action.. After each battle Grant would move eastward towards Richmond until finally, in June of 1864, he surprised Lee by forming a siege corden around not just Richmond but Petersburg.  He set up his headquarters at a place called City-Point which was just a mile or so from Hopewell where I was staying.  From there, for the next 9 months, he conducted the siege of  Richmond / Petersburg until forcing Lee out in March 1865.  Just a short drive down the road from where I was staying was the Petersburg National Battlefield. The battlefield is more of a trail that sort of morphed for me into a drive to Appomattox Court House. Like all national park service battlefield the visitor center was great and from thereI followed the self guided trail.

Battery No 8

I passed several "Forts" which were lynchpins that held the Union trench system together.

Artillery Piece

 I saw very little of the trenches themselves.The area today is quite heavily forested (sort of like Chilliwack BC) today but back in 1864 the land had been stripped.

Restored Fort

One Fort has been extensive reconstructed to show what it looked like at the time of the siege

Restored Fort

Early form of barbed wire :-)

Harrison Creek

The next stop was at a little stream called Harrison Creek.  It was at this creek in March 1865 that Lee's last offensive action was stopped. The picture on the right was taken looking across the creek at the high point of the confederate advance. Hell of a defensive position.

 Past Harrison Creek was Fort Stedman which was one of the objectives of Lee's abortive March offensive.

Fort Stedman

Fort Stedman