Battles for Battles for VirginiaVirginia

Battles for Battles for VirginiaVirginia

Grant Vs LeeMarch - October 1864

Grant Vs LeeMarch - October 1864

Virginia

By the end of 1863 the South was fighting a war of survival

The economy was devastated and the blockade was causing food and other goods to be in short supply

Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had turned the war into a struggle to overturn slavery

The South would get no help from European nations

Virginia

With General Ulysses S. Grant’s decisive victories in Vicksburg and Chattanooga President Lincoln pulled him from the west, and promoted him to be in charge of all Union Armies

Grant would be starting a renewed offensive against the great Confederate General Robert E Lee in another attempt to capture the Richmond, the capital of Virginia

Virginia - Battle of Wilderness

Grant & Lincoln planned a series of campaigns starting in May, 1864 when they pushed themselves into the northern Virginia wilderness, near the same place Union forces had been defeated at Chancellorsville

Virginia - Battle of Wilderness

Grant drew Lee’s forces out and they fought a number of battles

Grant wasn’t about to be intimidated by Robert E Lee’s reputation and even though he lost far more men, he kept them on the offensive instead of retreating

Virginia - Battle of Spotsylvania

Grant kept pushing further south, towards Richmond, he wanted to take a road junction at a courthouse in Spotsylvania

Lee got there first and set up a defensive line

Virginia - Battle of Spotsylvania On May 10th Grant

attacked the town Fighting was intense

and desperate, rain and mud slowed everything down

Flying bullets cut through a tree as the Confederates counterattacked

Lee wisely withdrew rather than losing his whole army in order to move to a stronger position

Virginia - Battle of Cold Harbor

Grant and his Army of the Potomac was just 11 miles northeast of Richmond, but still Lee held his men between Grant’s army and their goal

They fought a major battle at Cold Harbor from June 1st - 4th

Virginia - Battle of Cold Harbor

Lee’s Confederate soldiers held the land hard and pummeled Grant’s invasion

One Union soldier said the “dreadful storm of lead and iron was more like a volcanic blast than a battle”

Grant lost 7,000 men without gaining any advantage, they would have to find another way into Richmond

Siege of Petersburg

Lee was forced to order much of his army to defend the strategic railroad location at Petersberg

Grant sent 100,000 men south from Cold Harbor

Siege of Petersburg

A Confederate force barely halted the Union advance at Petersburg

As Lee reinforced the city, Grant’s men attacked the two railroads that supplied the town

Siege of Petersburg

Grant laid siege to the city, and by August had cut off most supply routes

He continued attacking in September and October, strengthening Union trenches around the city

Siege of Petersburg

Lee was facing a desperate winter of trench warfare

He was low on supplies and manpower

The siege lasted 10 months, until March of 1865

Battles for Virginia 1864