Petersburg, Virginia, June–August 1864

This chapter discusses the strategic context and operational conduct of the military events around Petersburg, Virginia, between June and August 1864. The Petersburg Campaign involved the principal armies of both the United States and the Confederacy, led, respectively, by Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Gen. Robert E. Lee. Grant initiated four major offensives during this period that spanned both sides of the James River, including a massive cavalry raid that coursed through ten Virginia counties. African American troops saw combat in these military actions for the first time in the war’s eastern theater. The campaign greatly impacted the citizens of Petersburg, the Confederacy’s seventh-largest city, and was fought within the preliminaries of the presidential election of 1864. In addition to inflicting tens of thousands of casualties, these martial actions had a profound effect on the civilians, Black and White, who were caught up in the Civil War’s most decisive campaign.