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Momentous events in American history occurred in late march and early April 1865 in and around Petersburg, Virginia. The defeat of Major General George E. Pickett’s Confederate force at the Battle of Five Forks on April 1, 1865, opened the way for Union forces to finally sever the South Side Railroad to the west of Petersburg on the following ...
The history of Petersburg, Virginia, United States as a modern settlement begins in the 17th century when it was first settled. The city was incorporated in 1748.
Petersburg was was the junction of several vital railroads that supplied Richmond and the Army of Northern Virginia. It was surrounded by the fortifications of the Dimmock Line, but had far too few troops to defend it.
The founding of a settlement on the south side of the Appomattox River in the 1630s, the building of Fort Henry there in the 1640s, and the initial planning for the city of Petersburg there by William Byrd II in the 1730s were all based on one geographical reality: the presence of the falls of.
Historic sites include the 4.25-square-mile (11-square-km) Petersburg National Battlefield (scene of the “Battle of the Crater”), Old Blandford Church (1734–37) and Cemetery (with 30,000 Confederate graves), and Centre Hill Mansion Museum (1823).
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
While the siege was initiated on June 15, 1864, the Federal attackers sought a quick victory—the capture of the vital rail and road center of Petersburg, Virginia—some 23 miles south of the Confederate capital of Richmond.
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The siege began on June 15, 1864, with the Union Army’s attack on Confederate earthworks east of the city, and it ended with the withdrawal of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia from Petersburg and Richmond by early morning on April 3, 1865.
