Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/556



OILED in his attempts to turn Lee's flank south of the James by the capture of Petersburg, through Beauregard's brave resistance for four days against his repeated assaults, Grant drew back and commenced throwing up formidable lines of intrenchments, all along his front, during the night of June 18th and the following Sunday. Lee's army, facing to the eastward, was as busily occupied in throwing up equally strong defensive works, preparing to hold Petersburg as the key to the defenses of Richmond, in obedience to the Confederate authorities, although Lee himself would have preferred to draw Grant farther into the interior, away from his tidewater base and fortress, where he could have maneuvered against him in the open country and amid Nature's great fortifications, which so abound among the mountains of Virginia.

At this time, Beauregard's left rested on the navigable Appomattox, about one mile north of east from Petersburg, where the Appomattox turns northward, for five miles, to the vicinity of Port Walthall, and thence eastward, for about four miles, to City Point, where that river enters the James. On his right, Anderson, with the First corps, extended the Confederate line for some three miles to the southward, in front of Petersburg, crossing the Norfolk & Petersburg railroad in the vicinity of the Jerusalem plank road, thence westward, for some two miles; the Third corps, under A. P. Hill, extended the Confederate right, on the south of Petersburg, to the Weldon & Petersburg railroad. Pickett's division took up the line on the west side of the Appomattox and extended it north to the James, at the big bend opposite Dutch gap. The fortifications on the north of the James, from Chaffin's bluff northward, along the front of Richmond, were held by batteries and by local troops, in command of Lieut.-Gen. R. S. Ewell.