Following yesterday’s victory in the Battle of Five Forks at Petersburg, Grant determines to make a frontal offensive on Lee‘s defenses. In the predawn hours of a Sunday morning, Gen. Horatio Wright’s Sixth corps emerge from their trenches and break through the Rebel lines, followed by offensives on the part of the Second and Ninth…
Five Forks is a road junction in the vicinity of Petersburg, important to the viability of Robert E. Lee‘s last supply line, the South Side Railroad. Today the Federals advance upon the junction and score a significant victory over the Rebels, capturing many prisoners and forcing, by the end of the day, Confederate defenders into…
For ten months the Federals have laid siege to Petersburg, facing off against Confederate General Robert E. Lee‘s Army of Northern Virginia. The trenches are all that separate Union forces from the Confederate capital of Richmond, with the siege lines now stretching northward some 25 miles to the edge of Richmond. Defending Confederate forces are…