A report on American Civil War and Siege of Petersburg

Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard (May 28, 1818 – February 20, 1893) was a Confederate general officer of Louisiana Creole descent who started the American Civil War by leading the attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861.

Beauregard continued commanding the defenses of Petersburg in the early days of the siege, but with the loss of the Weldon Railroad in the Battle of Globe Tavern (August 18–21), he was criticized for not attacking more forcefully and he became dissatisfied with the command arrangements under Lee.

The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, sometimes more simply referred to as the Battle of Spotsylvania (or the 19th-century spelling Spottsylvania), was the second major battle in Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's 1864 Overland Campaign of the American Civil War.

The armies then faced each other for nine months in the Siege of Petersburg.

The Confederacy comprised U.S. states that declared secession and warred against the United States (the Union) during the American Civil War.

Union offensives continued with Sherman's March to the Sea to take Savannah and Grant's Wilderness Campaign to encircle Richmond and besiege Lee's army at Petersburg.

The Western Theater of the American Civil War encompassed major military operations in the states of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee, as well as Louisiana east of the Mississippi River.

Most of the initiatives failed: Butler became bogged down in the Bermuda Hundred Campaign; Sigel was quickly defeated in the valley; Banks became occupied in the ill-fated Red River Campaign; Meade and Grant experienced many setbacks and much bloodshed in the Overland Campaign before finally settling down to a siege of Petersburg.

The Bermuda Hundred campaign was a series of battles fought at the town of Bermuda Hundred, outside Richmond, Virginia, during May 1864 in the American Civil War.

Butler's forces were eventually used in the Siege of Petersburg.

During the American Civil War, Virginia was split when the state government in Richmond joined the Confederacy, but many of the state's northwestern counties wanted to remain with the Union, helping form the state of West Virginia in 1863.

After the capture of Richmond that month, the state capital was briefly moved to Lynchburg, while the Confederate leadership fled to Danville.

The Battle of Five Forks was fought on April 1, 1865, southwest of Petersburg, Virginia, around the road junction of Five Forks, Dinwiddie County, at the end of the Siege of Petersburg, near the conclusion of the American Civil War.

The Valley campaigns of 1864 began as operations initiated by Union Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and resulting battles that took place in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia during the American Civil War from May to October 1864.

After his missions of neutralizing Early and suppressing the Valley's military-related economy, Sheridan returned to assist Grant at Petersburg.

The American Battlefield Trust is a charitable organization (501(c)(3)) whose primary focus is in the preservation of battlefields of the American Civil War, the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 through acquisition of battlefield land.

Virginia: Aldie, Appomattox Courthouse, Appomattox Station, Ball's Bluff, Brandy Station, Bristoe Station, Buckland Mills, Cedar Creek, Cedar Mountain, Chancellorsville, Cold Harbor, Cool Spring, Cross Keys, First Deep Bottom, Second Deep Bottom, First Kernstown, Fisher's Hill, Five Forks, Fort Harrison, Fredericksburg, Gaines's Mill, Glendale, Hatcher's Run, High Bridge, J.E.B. Stuart's Birthplace, Kelly's Ford, Lee's Mill, Malvern Hill, Manassas, McDowell, Middleburg, Mine Run, New Market, New Market Heights, North Anna, Petersburg (A.P. Hill death site), Petersburg (Peebles' Farm), Petersburg (The Breakthrough), Port Republic, Rappahannock Station, Ream's Station, Sailor's Creek, Saltville, Second Winchester, Spotsylvania Courthouse, Stafford Civil War Park, Third Winchester, Thoroughfare Gap, Tom's Brook, Totopotomoy Creek, Trevilian Station, Upperville, Ware Bottom Church, White Oak Road, Wilderness, Williamsburg

Union and Confederate armies employed field works and extensive trench systems in the American Civil War (1861–1865) — most notably in the sieges of Vicksburg (1863) and Petersburg (1864–1865), the latter of which saw the first use by the Union Army of the rapid-fire Gatling gun, the important precursor to modern-day machine guns.