North Carolina 56th Infantry, Company E (Confederate)

Ware Bottom Church

After severe fighting at Drewry's Bluff on the James River blunted a Union offensive against Richmond, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler's Army of the James withdrew to the Bermuda Hundred peninsula. On May 20th, eight Confederate brigades under Gen. Pierre G.T. Beauregard attacked Butler's advance picket lines near Ware Bottom Church. Nearly 10,000 soldiers from both sides clashed in the vicinity of the structure. At the end of the severe fight, over 1,400 men were left either dead or wounded. After the battle, t…READ MORE

Second Petersburg

As the Overland Campaign concluded, the strategic goals of Lieut. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant shifted from the defeat of Robert E. Lee's army in the field to eliminating the supply and communication routes to the Confederate capital at Richmond. The city of Petersburg, 24 miles south of Richmond, was the junction point of five railroads that supplied the entire upper James River region. Grant knew Petersburg was the key to the capture of Richmond and that Lee would be forced to defend it. Marching south from Co…READ MORE

Third Petersburg

With the Confederate defeat at Five Forks on April 1st, Lieut. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Maj. Gen. George Meade ordered a general assault against the Petersburg lines by the Second, Ninth, Sixth and Twenty-Fourth Corps to take place April 2nd. In the pre-dawn darkness, the Union infantry gained a successful breakthrough where Maj. Gen. Horatio G. Wright's advancing Sixth Corps met the Confederate lines held by Maj. Gen. A. P. Hill near the Boydton Plank Road. Hill was killed trying to reach his troops in t…READ MORE