Petersburg • East • Southeast • West • Monuments • Markers • Facts • Timeline
Confederate Brigadier General Henry Wise had received few reinforcements after the raid on June 9. His 2,000 men were spread very thinly from redoubts 1 to 23. Union Major General William F. Smith attacked with over 16,000. He sent them forward in heavy skirmish lines that provided poor targets for the Confederate artillery but still overwhelmed the Confederates. By nightfall of June 15 Union forces had overrun redoubts 3 through 12 and seemed to have a clear march into Petersburg the next day.
But during the night the Confederates formed a temporary defensive line while beginning yet another, more permanent line a short distance to its rear. General P.G.T. Beauregard, in overall command of Confederate forces south of Richmond, worked feverishly to bring in reinforcements, stripping his defensive lines at Bermuda Hundred. Heavy Union reinforcements also poured in over the next three days, with Hancock’s Second, Warren’s Fifth, and Burnside’s Ninth Corps joining the attack after long and exhausting marches.
Throughout the 16th and 17th Union forces pressed forward in large numbers but in isolated, uncoordinated attacks. Having slowed the Union advance, the Confederates were able to withdraw into their newly completed defensive lines. Grant ordered an attack all along the line on the 18th. The result was a disaster as the well-entrenched Confederates, reinforced by two divisions from Lee’s First Corps, mowed down the exhausted and often inexperienced Union attackers. It was here that the First Maine Heavy Artillery, fighting as infantry, lost over 600 men in ten minutes, the highest number of killed and mortally wounded of any regiment in the United States Army in a single day of battle in the Civil War.
[previous battle map, June 9, 1864] [Main Timeline] [next battle map, June 18, 1864]