American Civil WarStuff Happened · War
Battle · Eastern Theatre
The Breakthrough at Petersburg
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The end of the siege
Nine months in the trenches
Grant pins Lee against Petersburg and Richmond for nine months, then breaks the Confederate right at Five Forks and orders the whole line forward.
2Before dawn, April 2
The breakthrough
A signal gun at 4:40 a.m., the Sixth Corps tears through A. P. Hill’s line in twenty minutes, and Hill is killed riding to rally his men.
3Early afternoon
The stand at Fort Gregg
A few hundred defenders hold a small earthen fort against Gibbon’s corps for nearly two hours, buying Lee the daylight to get away.
4That night and after
The fall and the flight
Lee abandons Petersburg and Richmond, the capital burns, and the Army of Northern Virginia takes the road west toward Appomattox.