First Battle of Petersburg

The Battle of Petersburg was an unsuccessful Union assault against the earthworks fortifications—the Dimmock Line—protecting the city of Petersburg, Virginia, June 9, 1864, during the American Civil War. Because of the rag-tag group of defenders involved, it is sometimes known as the Battle of Old Men and Young Boys.

In early June 1864, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Gen. Robert E. Lee were engaged in the Overland Campaign, facing each other in their trenches after the bloody Battle of Cold Harbor. Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler was bottled up in the Bermuda Hundred area to the east of Richmond, Virginia, attempting to distract Lee by attacking Richmond. Butler realized that Richmond was supplied by railroads that converged in the city of Petersburg, to the south, and that taking Petersburg would cripple Lee's supply lines. He was also aware that Confederate troops had been moving north to reinforce Lee, leaving the defenses of Petersburg in a vulnerable state. Sensitive to his failure in the Bermuda Hundred Campaign, Butler sought to achieve a success to vindicate his generalship. He wrote, "the capture of Petersburg lay near my heart."

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