A report on Siege of Petersburg, Battle of the Crater, Battle of Cold Harbor and Confederate States Army

The Battle of the Crater was a battle of the American Civil War, part of the siege of Petersburg.

It took place on Saturday, July 30, 1864, between the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert E. Lee, and the Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Major General George G. Meade (under the direct supervision of the general-in-chief, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant).

Thousands of Union soldiers were killed or wounded in a hopeless frontal assault against the fortified positions of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's army.

Petersburg was crucial to the supply of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's army and the Confederate capital of Richmond.

It also featured the war's largest concentration of African-American troops, who suffered heavy casualties at such engagements as the Battle of the Crater and Chaffin's Farm.

In the final stage, Lee entrenched his army within besieged Petersburg before finally retreating westward across Virginia.

It was actually trench warfare, rather than a true siege, as the armies were aligned along a series of fortified positions and trenches more than 20 mi long, extending from the old Cold Harbor battlefield near Richmond to areas south of Petersburg.

This theory was tested at the Battle of Cold Harbor (May 31 – June 12) when Grant's army once again came into contact with Lee's near Mechanicsville.

The Battle of Cold Harbor was the final victory won by Lee's army during the war (part of his forces won the Battle of the Crater the following month, during the Siege of Petersburg, but this did not represent a general engagement between the armies), and its most decisive in terms of casualties.

During the Civil War 28,693 Native Americans served in the U.S. and Confederate armies, participating in battles such as Pea Ridge, Second Manassas, Antietam, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and in Federal assaults on Petersburg.

They were often the victims of battlefield massacres and atrocities at the hands of the Confederates, most notably at Fort Pillow in Tennessee and at the Battle of the Crater in Virginia.