The Petersburg Canon, Part II: The Bermuda Hundred Campaign and Butler's Attack on Petersburg

Prelude:  The Bermuda Hundred Campaign

Two books cover much of the Bermuda Hundred Campaign, which lasted from May 5, 1864 until arguably as late as June 15, 1864, when Grant and the Army of the Potomac arrived at the gates of Petersburg.

William Glenn Robertson.  Back Door to Richmond:  The Bermuda Hundred Campaign, April-June 1864.  Newark, Del.:  The University of Delaware Press, 1987.

Herbert M. Schiller.  The Bermuda Hundred Campaign.  Dayton, Oh.:  Morningside House, 1988.

These two books, both excellent, complement one another in their approaches.  The former is more of a view from a distant perspective, while the latter gets a little bit deeper into the thickets.  Both have splendid maps.  They cover a campaign in which Petersburg was ripe for the taking at first but not the objective until the opportunity to walk into the Cockade City had passed.

Butler's Attack on Petersburg

One book covers Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler's June 9, 1864 attack on Petersburg.

William Glenn Robertson.  The First Battle for Petersburg:  The Attack and Defense of the Cockade City, June 9, 1864.  El Dorado Hills, Ca.:  Savas Beatie, 2015.  This is an expanded version of  The Petersburg Campaign:  The Battle of Old Men and Young Boys June 9, 1864  (Lynchburg, Va.:  H. E. Howard, Inc., 1989).

This is the only book on a battle that seems insignificant in terms of numbers but was critical because it alerted the Confederates to Petersburg's vulnerability and led them to reinforce it enough that the Federals could not just march into the city on June 15, 1864.  It covers the June 9 fight in vivid detail.

 

Coming in August: "Judgment at Appomattox" by Ralph Peters

Ralph Peters, who brought to life the siege of Petersburg in his novel The Damned of Petersburg, will have out the fifth and final novel of his eastern theater cycle, Judgment at Appomattox.  The book will cover the period from Fort Stedman (March 25, 1865) to Lee's surrender at Appomattox.  The other titles of the series are Cain at Gettysburg, Hell or Richmond, and Valley of the Shadow.  I expect to have the same difficulty setting down Judgment at Appomattox as I did its predecessors.

The Petersburg Canon, Part 1: Histories Dealing with the Entire Campaign

There are really only three histories that cover the entire campaign.  They complement one another, because each takes a different approach.

Hess, Earl J..  In the Trenches at Petersburg:  Field Fortifications and Confederate Defeat.  Chapel Hill, N.C.:  University of North Carolina Press, 2009.  This book takes the most original point of view and focuses on the fortifications.  The author would have done well to study siege warfare during other periods, but just the writing about the fortifications is worth the price of the book.  One of the book's insights is that the field fortifications delayed Confederate defeat in that Federal troops who should have been training to fight spent their time digging instead.

Horn, John.  The Petersburg Campaign:  June 1864-April 1865.  Conshohocken, Pa.: Combined Books, Inc., 1993.  An interpretative, analytical, traditional approach--except for excerpts from the diaries of Pvt. George S. Bernard of the 12th Virginia Infantry, the Petersburg Regiment, at the heart of much of the fighting Southside (south of the Appomattox River).  Long on tables, short on maps.

Trudeau, Noah Andre.  The Last Citadel:  Petersburg, Virginia, June 1864- April, 1865.  El Dorado Hills, Ca.:   Savas Beatie, 2014.  An eyewitness history of the siege.

There are two histories that focus on the fighting Southside, a very substantial part of the siege.  Because one of these histories focuses mainly on the Federal side, and the other on the Confederate side, these volumes complement each other.

Bearss, Edwin C., with Suderow, Bryce A.  The Petersburg Campaign.  2 Vols.  El Dorado Hills, Ca.:  Savas Beatie, 2012.  These volumes build on Mr. Bearss' studies of the main actions Southside.  They focus mostly on the Official Records and the Federal side of things.  

The other history has quite a history of its own.

Bernard, George S., ed.  War Talks Of Confederate Veterans:  Addresses delivered before A.P. Hill Camp of Confederate Veterans, of Petersburg, Va., with ADDENDA giving Statements of Participants, Eye-Witnesses and others, in respect to Campaigns, Battles, Prison Life and other War Experiences. Petersburg:  Fenn & Owen, 1892.  Bernard and his comrades would write articles, publish them, seek comments from their fellow soldiers, and publish the results.  This volume is critical to the understanding of the battle of the Crater, among other fights--not all of them around Petersburg.

Newsome, Hampton, Horn, John and Selby, John.  Civil War Talks: Further Reminiscences of George S. Bernard and His Fellow Veterans.  Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia, 2012.  Bernard originally compiled and edited this book.  He was ready to publish it in 1896, essentially as volume 2 of War Talks Of Confederate Veterans.  Something happened and the manuscript disappeared.  It showed up at a flea market in 2004, where it was purchased for fifty dollars.  Later it was sold to the History Museum of Western Virginia for fifteen thousand.  This volume covers the battles of Globe Tavern (August 1864) and Burgess Mill (October 1864), among others--again, not all of them around Petersburg.

Was Atlanta Really the Last Chance for the Confederacy? Or Did It Have Another Chance in 1865?

In beginning a draft of a book on the extraordinary maneuvers and events at Petersburg on June 22, 1864, I compared Grant's progress to Sherman's and assessed Joe Johnston as a poor choice for commander of the Army of Tennessee if the goal was to retain possession of Atlanta.

At least one reader of my circulated comments on Johnston thought I didn't understand what Johnston was up to.  What do you think he was up to?  A purely Fabian strategy of abandoning Atlanta to preserve the Army of Tennessee?  

I'm interested because I recently read Stanley Horn's The Decisive Battle of Nashville and the author (no relation to me) asserts that the Federal government would have run out of money to prosecute the war by the summer of 1865.  If that were the case, a Fabian strategy might have been viable.  It's still pretty clear that President Davis wanted Atlanta held, but Johnston might have done well to give up the city to preserve his army if the Federal government was going to run out of money in the middle of 1865.

What do you think?