Petersburg was a Civil War engagement fought in Virginia, 1864. It was a Confederate victory.
Marching from Cold Harbor, Meade's Army of the Potomac crossed the James River on transports and a 2,200-foot long pontoon bridge at Windmill Point. Butler's leading elements (XVIII Corps and Kautz's cavalry) crossed the Appomattox River at Broadway Landing and attacked the Petersburg defenses on June 15. The 5,400 defenders of Petersburg under command of Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard were driven from their first line of entrenchments back to Harrison Creek. After dark the XVIII Corps was relieved by the II Corps. On June 16, the II Corps captured another section of the Confederate line; on the 17th, the IX Corps gained more ground. Beauregard stripped the Howlett Line (Bermuda Hundred) to defend the city, and Lee rushed reinforcements to Petersburg from the Army of Northern Virginia. The II, XI, and V Corps from right to left attacked on June 18 but was repulsed with heavy casualties. By now the Confederate works were heavily manned and the greatest opportunity to capture Petersburg without a siege was lost. The siege of Petersburg began. Union Gen. James St. Clair Morton, chief engineer of the IX Corps, was killed on June 17.
Fought over four days from June 15 to June 18, 1864, the clash sometimes called the assault on Petersburg opened the long Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, better known to history as the Siege of Petersburg. During this engagement, Grant and Meade sought to seize Petersburg, Virginia, hoping to strike before Lee could bring his Army of Northern Virginia to the city's defense.
Across those four days, Union troops launched assault after assault on a Confederate force under Beauregard that was far smaller in number. Yet Beauregard's skillful use of strong defensive ground, combined with the Union command's inability to coordinate its efforts, offset that imbalance. Major General William F. "Baldy" Smith bore particular blame, having let slip the most promising chance for a breakthrough on June 15. By the fourth day, June 18, enough reinforcements from Lee's army had arrived to render any further Union attacks futile. Because the Union could not break the Confederates in this fighting, what followed was the opening of a siege that would stretch on for ten months.
After four days of attacks yielded almost nothing in the way of ground gained, Meade told his troops to entrench where they stood. The toll on his side reached 11,386 men, with 1,688 dead, 8,513 injured, and 1,185 either missing or taken prisoner. Lee's forces lost far fewer, some 4,000 in all, made up of 200 killed, 2,900 wounded, and 900 missing or captured. Though Grant had missed his chance to seize Petersburg without a prolonged fight, Lee's arrival there around midday on June 18 came too late to stop the Union forces from settling in for a siege. That siege would stretch on until April 1865.
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