The Richmond–Petersburg campaign was a series of battles around Petersburg, Virginia, fought from June 9, 1864, to March 25, 1865, during the American Civil War. Although it is more popularly known as the siege of Petersburg, it was not a classic military siege, in which a city is encircled with fortifications blocking all routes of ingress and egress, nor was it strictly limited to actions against Petersburg. The campaign consisted of nine months of trench warfare in which Union forces commanded by Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant assaulted Petersburg unsuccessfully and then constructed trench lines that eventually extended over 30 miles (48 km) from the eastern outskirts of Richmond, Virginia, to around the eastern and southern outskirts of Petersburg. Petersburg was crucial to the supply of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's army and the Confederate capital of Richmond. Numerous raids were conducted and battles fought in attempts to cut off the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad. Many of these battles caused the lengthening of the trench lines.
Horatio Gouverneur Wright was an engineer and general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He took command of the VI Corps in May 1864 following the death of General John Sedgwick. In this capacity, he was responsible for building the fortifications around Washington DC, and in the Overland Campaign he commanded the first troops to break through the Confederate defenses at Petersburg. After the war, he was involved in a number of engineering projects, including the Brooklyn Bridge and the completion of the Washington Monument, and served as Chief of Engineers for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The Army of the James was a Union Army that was composed of units from the Department of Virginia and North Carolina and served along the James River during the final operations of the American Civil War in Virginia.
The Appomattox campaign was a series of American Civil War battles fought March 29 – April 9, 1865, in Virginia that concluded with the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia to forces of the Union Army under the overall command of Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, marking the effective end of the war.
The Battle of Globe Tavern, also known as the Second Battle of the Weldon Railroad, fought August 18–21, 1864, south of Petersburg, Virginia, was the second attempt of the Union Army to sever the Weldon Railroad during the siege of Petersburg of the American Civil War. A Union force under Major General Gouverneur K. Warren destroyed miles of track and withstood strong attacks from Confederate troops under General P.G.T. Beauregard and Lieutenant General A.P. Hill. It was the first Union victory in the Richmond–Petersburg Campaign. It forced the Confederates to carry their supplies 30 miles (48 km) by wagon to bypass the new Union lines that were extended farther to the south and west.
Joseph King Fenno Mansfield was a career United States Army officer and civil engineer. He served as a Union general in the American Civil War and was mortally wounded at the Battle of Antietam.
The Battle of Namozine Church was an engagement in Amelia County, Virginia, between Union Army and Confederate States Army forces that occurred on April 3, 1865, during the Appomattox Campaign of the American Civil War. The battle was the first engagement between units of General Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia after that army's evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia, on April 2, 1865, and units of the Union Army under the immediate command of Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan, who was still acting independently as commander of the Army of the Shenandoah, and under the overall direction of Union General-in-Chief Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. The forces immediately engaged in the battle were brigades of the cavalry division of Union Brig. Gen. and Brevet Maj. Gen. George Armstrong Custer, especially the brigade of Colonel and Brevet Brig. Gen. William Wells, and the Confederate rear guard cavalry brigades of Brig. Gen. William P. Roberts and Brig. Gen. Rufus Barringer and later in the engagement, Confederate infantry from the division of Maj. Gen. Bushrod Johnson.
James Jay Archer was a lawyer and an officer in the United States Army during the Mexican–American War. He later served as a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army (CSA) during the American Civil War.
The Battle of Amelia Springs, Virginia was an engagement between the Union Army and Confederate Army of Northern Virginia that occurred on April 5, 1865 during the Appomattox Campaign of the American Civil War. It was followed by a second rear guard action near the same location on the night of April 5, 1865 and morning of April 6, 1865 during the Union Army pursuit of the Confederate forces which were fleeing westward after the fall of Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia at the Third Battle of Petersburg on April 2, 1865. The actions took place just prior to the Battle of Sailor's Creek on April 6, 1865. That battle would be the last major engagement between the Union Army under the overall direction of Union General-in-Chief, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, and General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia before that Confederate army's surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia on April 9, 1865.
Gershom Mott was a United States Army officer and a General in the Union Army, a commander in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War.
Daniel P. Tyler IV was an iron manufacturer, railroad president, and one of the first Union Army generals of the American Civil War.
James Adelbert Mulligan was colonel of the 23rd Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Union Army during the American Civil War. On February 20, 1865, the United States Senate confirmed the posthumous appointment of Mulligan to the rank of brevet brigadier general of U.S. Volunteers to rank from July 23, 1864, the day before he was mortally wounded at the Second Battle of Kernstown, near Winchester, Virginia. He commanded the Federal forces at the First Battle of Lexington, and later distinguished himself in other engagements in the Eastern theater prior to his death in battle.
Joseph Jackson Bartlett was a New York attorney, brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and postbellum international diplomat and pensions administrator for the United States Government. He was chosen to receive the stacked arms of General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House.
William Francis Bartlett was a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War and, later, an executive in the iron industry.
As a fervently abolitionist and strongly Republican state, Maine contributed a higher proportion of its citizens to the Union armies than any other, as well as supplying money, equipment and stores. No land battles were fought in Maine. The only episode was the Battle of Portland Harbor (1863) that saw a Confederate raiding party thwarted in its attempt to capture a revenue cutter.
Thomas Ogden Osborn was an American lawyer, soldier, and diplomat who served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He was also the U.S. Minister to Argentina from 1874 to 1885.
James William Reilly was a lawyer, politician, and soldier from the state of Ohio who served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He commanded a brigade and then a division in the Army of the Ohio in several campaigns in the Western Theater of operations.
The Department of Virginia and North Carolina was a United States Military department encompassing Union-occupied territory in the Confederate States during the Civil War. In 1863 it was formed by the merging of two previously existing departments: the Department of Virginia and the Department of North Carolina. In 1865 the two departments were once again separated.
John Wesley Turner was a career U.S. Army officer who rose through the ranks as an artillery commander and staff officer during the American Civil War, becoming a Union Army general. Turner took a prominent part in the Appomattox Campaign and early in Congressional Reconstruction was responsible for forces occupying the Department of Virginia. After his retirement from the Army as head of the depot and commissary in St. Louis, Missouri, Turner remained in the city and became a leading citizen and public works commissioner.
The 57th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was a regiment of infantry that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. It was one of the four "Veteran Regiments" raised in Massachusetts during the winter of 1863–64. Recruits of these regiments were required to have served at least nine months in a prior unit. Colonel William F. Bartlett, at age 24 already a veteran of three regiments, organized the recruiting and formation of the 57th Massachusetts and served as its first commanding officer.
