The wagon camp at night. Necessary but thankless was the task of the teamsters, those thousands of soldiers and civilians who drove the supply wagons from the railroads and ships to the front line. Theirs may have been a relatively safe job, but a bone-wearying one.
Pennsylvania soldiers voting, 1864. Volunteers considered themselves citizens first, soldiers second. These men, and thousands like them, took time out from their deadly work to vote in the Presidential election, doubtless, as the campaign song ran, “For Lincoln and Liberty, too.”
Bivouac in the rifle-pits. Life in the infantry line was anything but pleasant: steaming, stinking mud in summer, frozen muck in winter. These soldiers of the V Corps built wood-and-canvas “shebangs” over their trenches as protection against the elements.
OCTOBER 27, 1864. Battle of Boydton Plank Road. Union Drive Toward the Southside R.R. Turned Back FEBRUARY 5-7, 1865. Union Troops Extend Line to Hatcher’s Run MARCH 25, 1865. Fort Stedman. Confederate Offensive Fails APRIL 1, 1865. Battle of Five Forks. Union Victory Opens Way to Southside R.R. APRIL 2, 1865. Union Forces Break Through Outer Defenses of City and Reach Appomattox River NIGHT OF APRIL 2-3, 1865. Confederates Evacuate Petersburg and Retreat West. Union Troops Enter City Morning of April 3 Union Army Sets Out in Immediate Pursuit of The Confederates on April 3 FORT GREGG FORT MAHONE FORT SEDGWICK FORT FISHER
The Petersburg campaign was grim business. Amusements could lighten the heart for only a brief time at best. Ever present were the mud and disease which followed every Civil War camp. Both opposing forces felt the chill of winter and the penetrating rain. The discouragement of the homesick, who never knew when, or if, they would return to their homes, was a hardship not peculiar to any rank. However, when spring came to warm the air, there was a difference between the two opposing armies. It was more than a numerical superiority. Then the Union soldiers felt confidence, while the Southern veterans, ill-clothed, ill-fed, and nearly surrounded, knew only despair.
