Lee Besieged: Grant's Second Petersburg Offensive, June 18-July 1, 1864

A vivid account of Grant’s daring but thwarted Second Offensive during the Petersburg siege, where tactical brilliance met fierce Confederate resistance.

The nine—month siege of Petersburg was the longest continuous operation of the Civil War. Contrary to popular belief, it was anything but static trench warfare, as John Horn ably demonstrates in Lee Besieged: Grant’s Second Petersburg Offensive, June 18–July 1, 1864. Large—scale Union “offensives,” grand maneuvers that often triggered major battles, broke the monotony of siege warfare. Once his First Offensive (the assaults of June 15–18) failed to capture the city, the Union commander planned and launched his next major effort within hours. This Second Offensive was one of the most dramatic operations of the entire war.

To pave the way for success, Grant brought the city’s bridges under the fire of his siege guns to slow the transfer of enemy trips in and out of Petersburg. He also seized a bridgehead at Deep Bottom on James River’s north bank to draw Confederate forces out of Petersburg by menacing Richmond. Next, he took more ambitious measures by sending infantry to hem in Petersburg from the Appomattox River below the city to the Appomattox above. The move was designed to cut the critical Weldon and South Side railroads and force the Rebels to abandon Petersburg and Richmond. As his infantry went to work, his cavalry set out to sever the Confederate railroads below Petersburg to cut off supplies and reinforcements from the south and west.

Grant’s opponent, however, was Gen. Robert E. Lee with his veteran infantry, not the inept John Floyd of Fort Donelson or the distracted John C. Pemberton of Vicksburg. Lee and his infantry division commander William Mahone marched to meet the enemy, and in a stunning turn of events, routed Grant’s foot soldiers at Jerusalem Plank Road. Together, Confederate cavalry under Wade Hampton and Mahone’s infantry smashed Grant’s troopers at the battles of Sappony Church and First Reams Station. Thousands of Federal prisoners flooded into Confederate camps. Not until April 1865, after seven more offensives, would Grant reach the Appomattox above Petersburg and force Lee to relinquish that city and the capital of Richmond.

This is tactical battle action at its finest. Horn’s explanation for the context and consequences of every decision is grounded in hundreds of primary sources and supported by 40 original maps. Lee Besieged is the first full—length book to put Grant’s second effort into its proper perspective—not only in the context of the Petersburg siege and the Civil War, but in the context of warfare’s history.