Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Volume 6: Volume 6

30. The Siege of Petersburg

30 The Siege of Petersburg: Two Failures to Capture the “Cockade City” August V. Kautz, Brevet Major General, U.S.V. the leading actors in the War of the Rebellion had little idea of the controversies which would grow out of their actions, to be fought over, and, if ever settled, to be decided by others than the participants years after. Two such events occurred just prior to the beginning of the siege of Petersburg,in the first half of June 1864. The first, on the ninth of that month, was an attempt to capture that city, made by [Major General Quincy A.] Gillmore, and a second attempt , on the fifteenth, made by [Major General William F.] Smith. Both were partially successful,and should have succeeded entirely,and both failures caused enmities that have not ceased,except,perhaps,with those who have gone to their graves, between the leading participants and their friends. [Major General Benjamin F.] Butler maintains in his book [Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major General Benj. F. Butler, Butler’s Book (Boston : A. M. Thayer, 1892)] that the capture of Petersburg was a favorite idea of his from the moment of his landing at Bermuda Hundred, and his reasons why it was not taken occupies many entertaining pages. He claims that he was led away from the intention to capture Petersburg by dispatches from [Lieutenant General Ulysses S.] Grant, when he first landed at Bermuda Hundred, assuring Butler that the Army of the Potomac would make a junction with the Army of the James in ten days for the purpose of besieging Richmond, and hence his movement toward Richmond instead of toward Petersburg . His repulse at Drewry’s Bluff he ascribes to the wants of cooperation of his corps commanders. On May 20 General Butler had eleven thousand men ready to march the next day on Petersburg, under the command of General Smith, but an order from General Grant for the Eighteenth Corps to join him at Cold Harbor put an end to this expedition. Early in June the plan of establishing a base for the Army of the James had been perfected to such an extent that Butler thought he could spare enough men from the guard placed over the cork of the bottle in which he had placed his already-greatly reduced Army of the James to make a dash on Petersburg and burn the bridges across the Appomattox. Butler gives a very interesting account of how he organized the expedition. The plan was to use his division of colored troops, consisting of about three thousand Negroes and about the same number of white soldiers from the Tenth Corps stationed in the entrenchments. The Siege of Petersburg • 393 06.381-464_Cozz 12/2/03, 8:56 AM 393 Southern Virginia (Peter Cozzens Collection) 06.381-464_Cozz 12/2/03, 8:56 AM 394 At the time of the departure of the Eighteenth Corps,the cavalry was obliged to take station in the entrenchments. It was proposed by General Butler that I should take as many cavalrymen as could be spared from the trenches,and while the infantry was occupying the attention of the enemy in the Petersburg entrenchment at Jordan point, I was to make a detour and try to break the lines at some weak point and get into the city and fire the bridges. The scheme hung fire until about June 7, when I received my orders to be ready to move on the evening of the eighth. I did not have much confidence in the plan, on account of the small force that I was to take. General Butler was so confident that there was no large force in the defenses of Petersburg, that General Gillmore was anxious to have the command of the infantry and obtained it. If I succeeded in getting inside, General Gillmore was to assault the lines and try to carry them. It was necessary to do something in order to keep as many Confederates from [General Robert E.] Lee’s army as possible. We knew little of what was going on at Cold Harbor, although we were within sound of the guns of the two great armies, and often listened anxiously to the distant canThe Siege of Petersburg • 395 Major General Quincy A. Gillmore (Peter Cozzens Collection) 06.381-464_Cozz 12/2/03, 8:56 AM 395 396 • part 6: the war...