Siege of Petersburg: Baldy Smith's Pause, the Crater and the Beefsteak Raid

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After about 50,000 Union casualties in the Overland Campaign, Ulysses S. Grant crossed the James River on a 2,000-foot pontoon bridge in mid-June 1864 and moved on Petersburg, the hub of five railroads feeding Richmond. On June 15, General William F. Baldy Smith broke through the Dimmock Line, where P.G.T. Beauregard's men stood about 10 feet apart, then halted for the night, and Winfield Scott Hancock deferred to him. Lee's reinforcements arrived, and on June 18 the 1st Maine Heavy Artillery lost 632 of 900 men in minutes. The fighting settled into trench lines that stretched over 30 miles.

Pennsylvania coal miners under Henry Pleasants dug a 500-foot tunnel, ventilated by a fire-driven updraft, and packed it with 8,000 pounds of powder. Meade and Grant replaced the trained United States Colored Troops division with an untrained white division under James Ledlie, and after the July 30 explosion troops poured into the crater, where William Mahone's men shot down at them, causing over 3,700 Union casualties. Grant then cut the Weldon Railroad, and Lee's failed attack on Fort Stedman in March 1865 led to the April 2 breakthrough and the evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond.

Burnside's division commanders drew straws, and Ledlie was reported drinking in a bombproof during the attack.
In September 1864 Wade Hampton's cavalry rustled about 2,500 head of Union cattle from behind Grant's lines.
Black soldiers around Petersburg were organized into the 25th Corps and earned 15 Medals of Honor in the campaign.
Starving Confederates at Fort Stedman stopped to eat captured Union rations.
The campaign produced roughly 70,000 casualties, about 42,000 Union and 28,000 Confederate.

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