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The ‘Opportunity Lost’ wayside marker is at Stop One on the Petersburg National Battlefield Eastern Front Auto Tour. It is inside the earthworks of Battery 5 north of the Visitor Center.
The marker is in Confederate Battery 5.
Text from the marker:
Opportunity Lost
At 7 p.m. on June 15, 1864, the boom of Union cannons to the east foreshadowed a Union attack on the Dimmock Line. Minutes later, soldiers of the Union Eighteenth Corps broke through the undermanned Confederate line and swarmed over the works here at Battery 5. In two hours the Federal captured 1.5 miles of Petersburg’s defenses.
Though few Confederates stood between the Federals and the streets of Petersburg, Union Maj. Gen. William F. Smith stopped his advance to await reinforcements. Nine months of tedious, deadly siege would pass before the Federals would again have such an opportunity to capture Petersburg.
Captions below the photographs
“At that hour, Petersburg was clearly at the mercy of the Federal commander, who had all but captured it.”
– Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, CSA
Confederate Commander, June 15, 1864
“Deeming that I held important points of the enemy’s line of works, I thought it prudent to make no farther advance.”
– Maj. Gen. William F. “Baldy” Smith, USA
Union Commander, June 15, 1864
Caption to the background drawing:
Union troops storm[ing] the Dimmock Line.
Location of the marker