The Siege of Petersburg: The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864 - H (John Horn - CWC)

by John Horn-HC The nine-month siege of Petersburg was the longest continuous operation of the American Civil War. A series of large-scale Union “offensives,” grand maneuvers that triggered some of the fiercest battles of the war, broke the monotony of static trench warfare. Grant’s Fourth Offensive, August 14-25, the longest and bloodiest operation of the campaign, is the subject of John Horn’s revised and updated Sesquicentennial edition of The Siege of Petersburg: The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864.Frustrated by his inability to break through the Southern front, General Grant devised a two punch combination strategy in an effort to sever the crucial Weldon Railroad and stretch General Lee’s lines. The plan called for General Hancock’s II Corps (with the X Corps) to move against Deep Bottom north of the James River to occupy Confederate attention while General Warren’s V Corps, supported by elements of the IX Corps, marched south and west below Petersburg toward Globe