1864 Four Antique Prints - Virginia - Siege of Petersburg - Weldon Railroad

Description

A collection of four original engravings relating to the Civil War in Virginia published in Harper's Weekly on November 26, 1864 and entitled as follows:
"Before Petersburg - Fortification of the Weldon Railroad" - see below
"Before Petersburg - A View of the Weldon Railroad"
"Before Petersburg - Reinforcements going to the Front"
"Before Petersburg - "Mounted Infantry""
Good condition
- see scans
. Unrelated text to the reverse. Page size 11 x 16
inches
These are original antique prints and not reproductions . Great collectors item for the civil war historian - see more of these in Seller's Other Items
.
Note: International mailing in a tube is expensive () - the quoted rate of assumes the pages are lightly folded at the text and mailed in a reinforced envelope
Petersburg - Military situation
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edit
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Main article:
Eastern Theater of the American Civil War
Further information:
American Civil War
Fredericksburg, Virginia; May 1863. Soldiers in the trenches.
Trench warfare
would appear again more infamously in
World War I
In March of 1864, Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to lieutenant general and was given command of the Union Army. He devised a coordinated strategy to apply pressure on the Confederacy from many points, something
President
Abraham Lincoln
had urged his generals to do from the beginning of the war. Grant put Maj. Gen.
William T. Sherman
in immediate command of all forces in the
West
and moved his own headquarters to be with the
Army of the Potomac
(still commanded by Maj. Gen.
George G. Meade
) in Virginia, where he intended to maneuver Lee's army to a decisive battle; his secondary objective was to capture Richmond (the capital of the Confederacy), but Grant knew that the latter would happen automatically once the former was accomplished. His coordinated strategy called for Grant and Meade to attack Lee from the north, while Maj. Gen.
Benjamin Butler
drove toward Richmond from the southeast; Maj. Gen.
Franz Sigel
to control the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade
Georgia
, defeat Gen.
Joseph E. Johnston
, and capture
Atlanta
;
Brig. Gens.
George Crook
and
William W. Averell
to operate against railroad supply lines in
West Virginia
; and Maj. Gen.
Nathaniel P. Banks
to capture
Mobile, Alabama
.
[6]
Most of these initiatives failed, often because of the assignment of generals to Grant for
political rather than military reasons
. Butler's
Army of the James
bogged down against inferior forces under Gen.
P.G.T. Beauregard
before Richmond in the
Bermuda Hundred Campaign
. Sigel was soundly defeated at the
Battle of New Market
in May and soon afterward he was replaced by Maj. Gen.
David Hunter
. Banks was distracted by the
Red River Campaign
and failed to move on Mobile. However, Crook and Averell were able to cut the last railway linking Virginia and Tennessee, and Sherman's
Atlanta Campaign
was a success, although it dragged on through the fall.
[7]
On May 4, Grant and Meade's Army of the Potomac crossed the
Rapidan River
and entered the area known as the Wilderness of
Spotsylvania
, beginning the six-week
Overland Campaign
. At the bloody but tactically inconclusive
Battle of the Wilderness
(May 5–7) and
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
(May 8–21), Grant failed to destroy Lee's army but, unlike his predecessors, did not retreat after the battles; he repeatedly moved his army leftward to the southeast in a campaign that kept Lee on the defensive and moved ever closer to Richmond. Grant spent the remainder of May maneuvering and fighting minor battles with the Confederate army as he attempted to turn Lee's flank and lure him into the open. Grant knew that his larger army and base of manpower in the North could sustain a war of attrition better than Lee and the Confederacy could. This theory was tested at the
Battle of Cold Harbor
(May 31 – June 12) when Grant's army once again came into contact with Lee's near
Mechanicsville
. He chose to engage Lee's army directly, by ordering a frontal assault on the Confederate fortified positions on June 3. This attack was repulsed with heavy losses. Cold Harbor was a battle that Grant regretted more than any other and Northern newspapers thereafter frequently referred to him as a "butcher". Although Grant suffered high losses during the campaign—approximately 50,000 casualties, or 41%—Lee lost even higher percentages of his men—approximately 32,000, or 46%—losses that could not be replaced.
[8]
On the night of June 12, Grant again advanced by his left flank, marching to the
James River
. He planned to cross to the south bank of the river, bypassing Richmond, and isolate Richmond by seizing the railroad junction of Petersburg to the south. While Lee remained unaware of Grant's intentions, the Union army constructed a
pontoon bridge
2,100 feet (640 m) long and crossed the James River on June 14–18. What Lee had feared most of all—that Grant would force him into a siege of Richmond—was poised to occur. Petersburg, a prosperous city of 18,000, was a supply center for Richmond, given its strategic location just south of Richmond, its site on the
Appomattox River
that provided navigable access to the James River, and its role as a major crossroads and junction for five railroads. Since Petersburg was the main supply base and rail depot for the entire region, including Richmond, the taking of Petersburg by Union forces would make it impossible for Lee to continue defending Richmond (the Confederate capital). This represented a change of strategy from that of the preceding Overland Campaign, in which confronting and defeating Lee's army in the open was the primary goal. Now, Grant selected a geographic and political target and knew that his superior resources could besiege Lee there, pin him down, and either starve him into submission or lure him out for a decisive battle. Lee at first believed that Grant's main target was Richmond and devoted only minimal troops under Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard to the defense of Petersburg.
[9]