The short answer is that the Union won. But if you're looking for a single, cinematic day where one army stood victorious over another on a traditional battlefield, you won't find it here. Petersburg wasn't really a "battle" in the way Gettysburg or Antietam were. It was a grueling, miserable, ten-month nightmare.
By the time the smoke cleared in April 1865, Ulysses S. Grant’s Union forces had essentially strangled the life out of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.
Most people get confused because "Petersburg" refers to a whole series of engagements. There were charges, mine explosions, and trench raids. But who won the Battle of Petersburg comes down to logistics and endurance. The North had more men, more food, and more rail lines. The South simply ran out of everything.
The Myth of the Single Day
We call it a battle, but it was a siege.
It started in June 1864. Grant had just hammered his way through the Overland Campaign, losing staggering amounts of men at places like Cold Harbor. He realized he couldn't just take Richmond—the Confederate capital—by a direct head-on assault anymore. Lee was too good at digging in. So, Grant pivoted. He went for Petersburg.
Why Petersburg? Because it was the back door to Richmond.
Five different railroads met in Petersburg. If you controlled those tracks, you controlled the food, ammo, and reinforcements going to Lee's army. If Petersburg fell, Richmond would starve. It was that simple.
The initial Union assault on June 15, 1864, actually should have won the war right then and there. The Confederate defenses were spread thin. Union General William "Baldy" Smith had a massive opening. But he hesitated. He waited. And while he waited, Lee rushed reinforcements into the city. That hesitation turned a potential four-day victory into a 292-day slugfest.
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Life in the Trenches
You’ve probably seen photos of World War I. The mud. The craters. The rats.
Petersburg was the blueprint for that kind of hell.
Soldiers on both sides lived in "bombproofs"—basically holes in the ground covered with logs and dirt. You couldn't stand up without a sharpshooter trying to take your head off. The heat in the Virginia summer was suffocating, and the winters were bone-chilling.
"It was a singular feeling to be living in the ground like a woodchuck," one Union soldier wrote home.
Actually, the psychological toll was worse than the physical. Men went "trench mad." The constant noise of mortars and the smell of unburied horses created an atmosphere of permanent dread.
The Disaster at the Crater
If you want to understand why the North didn't win sooner, you have to look at the Battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864. This is one of those "what if" moments in history that still makes historians shake their heads.
A group of Union soldiers, who were former coal miners from Pennsylvania, had a crazy idea. They dug a tunnel 511 feet long, right under a Confederate strongpoint. They packed it with four tons of gunpowder.
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BOOM.
The explosion was so big it killed 278 Confederate soldiers instantly and left a hole 170 feet long and 30 feet deep. It was a masterpiece of engineering.
But the follow-through was a disaster. Union troops charged into the hole instead of going around it. They got stuck at the bottom of a giant pit while Confederates stood at the rim and fired down on them. It was a massacre. Grant later called it "the most stupendous failure of the war."
The Crater is the main reason the siege dragged on through the winter of 1865.
The Turning Point: Five Forks
By March 1865, Lee’s lines were stretched to the breaking point. He had about 50,000 men holding nearly 37 miles of trenches. Grant had over 125,000.
The math didn't work for the South anymore.
The final blow came at a place called Five Forks on April 1, 1865. Union General Philip Sheridan—a guy who didn't know the meaning of the word "subtle"—smashed the Confederate right flank. This was the "Waterloo of the Confederacy."
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Once the South lost Five Forks, they lost the South Side Railroad. That was the last supply line. Lee knew it was over. He sent a telegram to President Jefferson Davis in Richmond: "I see no prospect of doing more than holding our position here till night. I could not say I shall be able to do that."
Lee pulled out of the trenches under the cover of darkness on April 2. The Union army marched into Petersburg the next morning.
Who Won? The Final Verdict
The Union victory at Petersburg was the decisive moment of the American Civil War.
Yes, Lee escaped with his army for a few more days, but he was a ghost of a commander by then. A week later, he surrendered at Appomattox Court House.
So, while the Union technically won the Battle of Petersburg, the cost was horrific. There were over 70,000 casualties combined. The city itself was a shell.
What You Should Do Next
If you really want to grasp the scale of this, you need to look beyond the casualty counts. Here is how to actually engage with this history:
- Visit the Battlefield: If you're ever in Virginia, the Petersburg National Battlefield is eerie. You can still see the depression in the earth where the Crater was. It puts the "292 days" into a perspective that books can't.
- Read the Memoirs: Look up the letters of Elisha Hunt Rhodes (Union) or Edward Porter Alexander (Confederate). They don't talk about strategy; they talk about the hunger and the dirt.
- Study the Logistics: Most people focus on the guns, but the real winner was the "United States Military Railroad." The Union built a railroad specifically to supply the siege lines. That’s how wars are actually won.
Petersburg proved that modern war wasn't about gallantry or "The Lost Cause." It was about industrial output, rail miles, and the sheer will to outlast the other guy in a hole in the dirt.