6-17-2012
Well there is a lot to catch up on. I had the date wrong on the last post, it was Wednesday 6-12-2012. On Thursday, 6-13 we toured the Petersburg national battlefield, starting at the East Visitors center. the history associated with the battles around Richmond and Petersburg is too long to tell in this blog. The siege of Petersburg lasted 9 months although here wasn't any fighting during the winter. The Union forces came down the south side and moved around to the west with the intent of cutting off the supplies coming into Petersburg by road and by rail. The Battle of Five forks was the critical battle as it was here the union forces were able to defeat the confederate forces and capture the last railroad. This battle occurred on April 1, 1876. The following day Grant ordered a massive attack at Pamplin which began at 4:45am on the morning of April 2. The battle lasted less than an hour an the union had captured the fort and the confederates had retreated North toward Petersburg and Richmond. That night Jefferson Davis left Richmond and Lee headed toward Appomattox.Lee surrendered on April 9 to Grant.
We toured Pamplin Battlefield  and Five forks on Thursday 6-14. The battle of the crater took placein the Petersburg National Battlefield park..It was interesting because the Union forces from PA used their knowledge of coal mining and tunnel under the confederate camp and the set off hundreds of pounds of explosives which blew a 30 foot deep crater in the middle of the confederate lines.
We came down to Williamsburg Virginia on Friday.
I will cover this part of ou trip on the next post.I will post the pictures tomorrow because they are slow to download.