In the Trenches at Petersburg: Field Fortifications and Confederate Defeat

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: The Ninth Offensive, April 2

{ 264 } ChaPTer eighTeen The Ninth Offensive, April 2 The Eighth Offensive ended with the battle of Five Forks as the scene shifted to the front lines south and west of Petersburg. Grant decided on the night of April 1 to launch two majorattacks against the trenches, one of them supported by Gibbon, and with cooperative movements by Sheridan, Griffin, and Humphreys west of Hatcher’s Run.The reversion to frontal attacks, rather than completing the turning of Lee’s flank, justify calling what happened on April 2 the Ninth Offensive. Whether these attacks were needed or whether it was wiser instead to continue the progress of Sheridan’s operations against the flank is an open question. But the attacks on April 2 ended the campaign with a bloody drama on a scale similar to that which had started the campaign in June. Grant was eager to take advantage of Sheridan’s partial turning of Lee’s flank. On learning at 1:30 P.M. that Sheridan and Warren had pushed the Confederates to the vicinity of Five Forks, “Grant folded the dispatch, and said ‘Then I want Wright and Parke to assault tomorrow morning, at 4 o’clock!’” News of Sheridan ’s victory at Five Forks reached headquarters at about 8:00 P.M., and Grant “got hasty” to push forward against Lee’s front. He telegraphed Ord, “Get your men up and feel the enemy and push him if he shows signs of giving way,” following that up with advice not to “fight your way over difficult barriers, against defended lines” but “to see though if the enemy is leaving and if so follow him up.” Grant urged that Wright start his attack immediately, but the Sixth Corps commander argued that it would be best to stick to the 4:00 a.M. timetable. “The corps will go in solid,” he informed Meade, “and I am sure will make the fur fly.” Meade agreed with him, and Wright, according to Lyman, “made, perhaps , the necessary delays.” Grant also thought that a massive artillery bombardment might compel the Rebels to give up their trenches that night. Heworried that Lee could evacuate those works and mass his army against Sheridan.1 At 10:00 P.M. on the night of April 1, 150 Union guns opened fire and kept it up until 1:00 a.M. Grant suggested to Sheridan that he lodge his troops on The Ninth Offensive, April 2 { 265 } the South Side Railroad on April 2. Sheridan, however, preferred to advance toward Petersburg along White Oak Road, crushing the fortified line by the flank as Humphreys advanced against it from the front.2 ninTh CorPs Parke’s target was the complex of works straddling Jerusalem Plank Road, encompassing six redoubts strengthened from old Dimmock Line origins. DimThe Ninth Offensive, April 2, 1865 (based on maps in Greene, Breaking the Backbone of the Rebellion, 259, 385, 447) Boydton Plank R o a d Boydton Plank Rd. Battery No. Battery No. Battery No. Battery No. Ft. Rice Covered Ways CS Picket Line Ft. Mahone Covered Way US Picket Line Ft. Sedgwick ฀ ฀ Church Road US Picket Line DuncanHarman Rd. ฀ ฀ Branch of Arthur’s Swamp Ft. Welch Jones Boydton Plank Road Line Ft. Gregg (CS) Ft. Whitworth ฀ ฀ ฀ Ft. Owen Squirrel Level Rd. ฀ Ft. Gregg (US) Ft. Fisher Ft. Conahey Ft. Urmston Ft. Gregg Ft. Whitworth ฀ Rohoic Creek Church Road Jones Boydton Plank Road Line Battery No. Dimmock Line Turnbull South Side Railroad Cox Rd DuncanHarman Rd. Appomattox River { 266 } The Ninth Offensive, April 2 mock’s Battery No. 25 lay east of the plank road on the main Confederate line, with No. 26 to its rear on a secondary line. No. 27 straddled the road, while No. 28 lay to the west of the roadway. No. 29 was situated 400 yards forward of the main line and 500 yards west of the plank road.The Confederates had strengthened this work, calling it Fort Mahone, to counter the artillery fire coming from Union Fort Sedgwick about 500 yards away. The soldiers had their own name for Fort Mahone; they called it Fort Damnation in counterpoint to Fort Hell, the Union nickname for Fort Sedgwick. A covered way linked Fort Mahone with the main Confederate line.The Rebels had constructed a strong secondary line east and west of the plank road and about a quarter-mile behind the main line. Two covered...