U. S. Army Educational Center and the entire staff of the u. S. Army heritage and Educational Center, and the u. S. Army war college, welcome to the third lecture of our series. The u. S. Army war college sponsors the series to provide an historical dimension to the exercise of generalship, strategic leadership, and war fighting institutions of power. We would like to extend a warm thank you to the Army HeritageCenter Foundation for their support and everything we do. Please be aware that the book for tonight is on sale in the gift shop, and we will have a book signing directly after the lecture. All proceeds go to the foundation to support the growth of the Army Heritage and education center. Our speaker is dr. Richard somers. He is a native of indiana and obtained his bachelors degree in history from the Carleton College in northfield, minnesota. He earned his doctorate in history at Rice University in 1970. The u. S. Army employed him right here at carlisle barracks, making him the last chartered member of the organization to be hired. He held the position until 1997 and served in various capacities until his retirement in 2014. The doctor was a professor of military history in 2007 and 2008 and continues to teach courses at the u. S. Army war college. He has made numerous television appearances, addressed audiences across the nation, and has presented three times prior to tonight. Dr. Summers has written over 100 books, articles, entries, and reviews primarily on the civil war and is a distinguished member of many historical organizations, including the society of civil war historians and the civil war trust. Ladies and gentlemen, i present dr. Richard somers. [applause] thank you, carl. It is a pleasure to be back home. In devoting 43 years of my professional career here, i can never leave. It is always a part of me. Im so happy to be able to share in our perspectives in military history presentation tonight. In this 150th Anniversary Season of the siege of petersburg, i would like to talk about richmond redeemed, enduring lessons in leadership from the siege of petersburg. The siege proved one of the longest operations of the civil war, some nine and a half months from june of 1864 to april of 1865. It pitted two of the greatest generals in American History directly against each other. Robert e lee and ulysses s. Grant. It was waged by two of the finest armies of americans that have ever been raised, the resilient federal army of the potomac and the hardhitting Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Those were the antagonists, which had grappled for the entire war, were reinforced with several newer armies that have been created only in 1864. Serving in those armies were senior subordinates who had figured prominently and other battles like gettysburg and antietam, which are so familiar to all of us here tonight. These officers include such prominent northern commanders as george g meade, Winfield Scott hancock, and david m greg, and such senior southern soldiers as s you will and ap health. With that prelude, let us summarize the siege before we assess it. Petersburg, virginia, situated on the right bank of the appomattox river 20 miles due south of richmond, was militarily important in its own right as the 10th largest city of the confederacy. As the head of navigation on the appomattox, as the site of the Confederate States led works, which manufacture of bullets for lee. The strategic significance of petersburg lay in logistics. How fitting isnt that the u. S. Armys center is now situated at fort lee, just east of petersburg and our new director colonel hardy came to us from the Logistics Center at fort lee . Throughout the civil war, petersburg functioned as the rail center for richmond. From northeast, southeast, south and west, railroads ran to the city. From there, a single railroad continued north to the confederate capital. Food stuff from southside virginia, armaments from the ports along the lower atlantic coast, salt and lead from southwestern virginia, and most vitally, reinforcements all funneled through petersburg to richmond. Only one other Railroad Running southwest through danville and the Carolina Piedmont connected the capital with the rest of the confederacy. Defending petersburg was crucial to defending richmond itself. Capturing the city would comparably cripple the capital. In the first three years of the civil war, danger remained distant as lees masterful generalship kept the union far from the rail center. Ulysses s. Grant changed all of that. By the spring of 1864, grant served as general in chief of the entire United States army. As Eastern Theater commander and as commander of what i like to call army group grant, an admittedly anachronistic term which i will nonetheless use because it so accurately conveys the reality that he commanded a group of armies. In all of these capacities, grant carried the war from Central Virginia to the vicinity of richmond. In 30 days of almost incessant fighting, from the battle of the wilderness on may 5 and sixth, to the battle of cold harbor on june 13, he compelled the confederates to concede there forward position and confronted them with the constriction of the close and can find coverage of their capital. In a daring southward strike in midjune, grant crossed the chickahominy river, crossed the mighty james river itself, and attacked the capitals crucial communication center, petersburg. His leading core overran the outer defenses but did not capture the cockade city itself. Federal failure to recognize opportunity saved the city. A grand assault by the unionists on june 18 was bloodily repulsed. Even worse disaster befell the yankees less than a week later in their efforts to cut confederate communication south of the cockade city. Those dual defeats on june 18 and june 22, 23rd ended the mobile warfare of spring that had carried of the armies from the rapid than river to the appomattox. Thereafter, operations stagnated into the slowness of summer, and the siege of petersburg began. This siege was not tactical. It lacked the parallels and other facets that type of five european siege warfare. The infamous battle of the crater on july 30 was an aberration, totally uncharacteristic of the siege, yet petersburg unquestionably was a siege. On the higher planes of operations, strategy, and grand strategy. In essence, grant used the siege to fix the gray coats in place at petersburg and richmond, thus to deny lee the operational and strategic initiative, which the virginian have used to such advantage in 1862 and 1863. Grants great entrenched camp closed in on petersburg from the east where fort lee now is. With its incessant shelling and sharpshooting, they created an ongoing threat, which the southerners could not ignore. More dangerous were the attacks, some of them twopronged, some of them first strike, which grant launched from the security of that camp against undermanned positions north of james river and against vulnerable supply lines south of petersburg. Nine such attacks, which i have termed offensive, punctuated the nine and a half months of the siege. Most were marked by mobile field battles in the open rather than by assaults on well defended positions. The most significant strikes were the fourth offensive in midaugust, which cut the vital Weldon Railroad linking petersburg to the blockade runners ports on the lower atlantic coasts, the fifth offensive in late september, the subject of my book, which nearly compels lead to abandon petersburg and made richmond in the greatest danger of capture by a field army the city ever face until she was occupied without resistance in april of 1865. Another major one was the eighth offensive in early february, which extended the federal left flank to hatchers run, and the ninth offensive in late march, which finally netted both petersburg and richmond. Overnight, april 2 and third, 1865, lee abandoned petersburg, abandoned his james river defenses, abandoned his capital of health for a last desperate flight toward North Carolina, but North Carolina proved too far away. The federal forces were too advantageously positioned. The butternut brigades had been too badly battered throughout the course of the siege. One week to the day after the final fighting at petersburg came appomattox. By the spring of 1865, indeed, ever since late 1864, the siege had assumed strategic dimensions. Grant made this clear in his letter on december 18 to his trusted subordinate and friend william t sherman, who had just completed his devastating march to the sea. My own opinion, wrote the general in chief now we are quoting general grant my only opinion is a versatile and out of virginia and if the cause of the south is lost, he wants richmond to be the last place surrendered. If lee has such views, it may be well to indulge him until we get Everything Else in our hands. This siege thus became a strategic tool for fixing the southerners in place in the old dominion while Philip H Sheridan and George H Thomas devoured the rest of the confederacy. By march of 1865, sherman had shoved the western theater all the way from tennessee deep into North Carolina, while in the Eastern Theater, lee remained pinned at petersburg. That is the essence of a strategic siege. There the nine and a half months of the siege have been summarized in just nine and a half minutes, but im not done. The various mobile field battles that marched each offensive are fascinating. Many in our audience and viewing on cspan have heard me speak on one or another of those battles. Here tonight, however, in the Army War College community, the focus should not be technical but operational and strategic. It let me then suggest some enduring lessons in strategic leadership derived from the siege of petersburg, an operation lasting nine and a half month proclaims perseverance, both its prizes and its pitfalls. Grants bulldog tenacity in grabbing hold of the army of Northern Virginia in the wilderness of spotsylvania and never letting go all the way through petersburg to appomattox is one of the greatest hallmarks of his generalship. Yet just what did this tenacity, this perseverance and tail at petersburg . Part of it, it seemed, involved fixing the southerners in place tactically, operationally, and strategically. Such fixing in place did not come easily. Time and again in the mobile field battles south of petersburg and north of james river, grant was defeated tactically. Even so, he managed to weave such setbacks into operational and strategic success. He achieved such success. Despite those battlefield setbacks because he remained undaunted. His calm, quiet confidence in himself gave him the determination to keep up the struggle. Then too his assurance in his own mind of ultimate federal victory in the siege and in the war gave him the ability to press ahead despite temporary setbacks. Together, such selfconfidence and such certainty of success produced military peace of mind, which freed him from doubt, fear, anxiety, and torment that had vexed so many other Army Commanders and which thus enabled him to focus on succeeding in the siege and on winning the war. Yet within such military peace of mind, grant was neither arrogant nor bullheaded. An even greater hallmark of his strategic leadership than tenacity was his ability to learn and apply the lessons of experience. Such a faculty had won him victory at vicksburg. It also produced the prize of petersburg. When he perceived that frontal attacks, which had worked so well in the western theater, brought only heavy casualties in the east, culminating in the disastrous repulse of june 18 in the first battle of petersburg, grant explicitly forbade such assaults against well defended, fortified positions. He launched no further such attacks throughout the siege until the final onslaught of april 2. Again, when experience demonstrated that sequential twopronged strikes on both sides of james river were not working, he progressively altered the timing of those until, by late october, they became simultaneous. When simultaneous strikes too failed, he again adjusted his tactics to massive first strikes by his left south of the cockade city. Such first strikes carried him to hatchers run in february and carried him into petersburg and richmond in april. Yet grant was not the only Senior Leader to display perseverance at petersburg. His confederate counterpart also showed tenacity in holding that city and richmond. Lee understood their practical significance to the southern war effort and cause, and he fought to save those cities. Fought is the key concept. Lee did not sit supinely in his trenches awaiting bluecoat attacks. When they left their defenses of the entrenched camp to attack him, he left his defenses to attack them. Although he never again controlled the strategic initiative, which remained in grants hands, the great confederate commander repeatedly challenged the yankees for control of the operational and tactical initiatives. The ensuing battles were not static, set piece struggles of attack and defense but fluid, mobile field battles that raged up and down the ground in which the secessionists superior knowledge of the terrain helped them halted the union advance. Counterattacking attackers offers obvious advantages. It even more significantly, those counterattacks reflect lees approach to warfare. He did not equate probable disadvantage with certain loss but rather strove to redirect to the military situation to his advantage. Way of contrast joe , johnston in georgia when threatened with fallback, and when threatened again, he would fall back, and when threatened again, he still fallback. He did not fall back. Lee fought back. Lee was prepared to abandon petersburg on september 30 if necessary to save richmond, yet he did not yield to such likely danger but battled back and saved both cities. Through such biting tenacity, oh the prolonged the security of his supply lines, his army, and his country for another nine. At the end, he eventually came, and all was lost. The graycoats held onto petersburg for too long. I do not blame leave for this decision or this outcome. He did not become general in chief of all confederate armies until february of 1865. Too late to affect the course of the war. The decision to remain in richmond rested with the government. As a professional soldier of the confederate republic, lee loyally carried out government policy. There is an aspect of perseverance, however, where lee may be criticized. Unlike grant who learned from experience, the virginian continued fighting in ways that had worked well earlier in the war but were no longer applicable in the mid1864. Unlike at chancellorsville, his counterattacks at petersburg almost never drove the union strike force from the field. At best, they simply stopped the force short of its objective. Counterattacks failed to overcome the confederates. Instead, they simply produced mounting confederate casualties with no corresponding conquest. For lee at petersburg, the old ways no longer worked. Such hallmarks of generalship characterized the exercise of command by lee and grant at petersburg. Yet with armies ranging from approximately 50,000 to 60,000 secessionists, and from 100,000127,000 bluecoats, the two commanders obviously could not control everything themselves but had to rely on senior subordinates. Here too lay lessons in leadership. To begin with, both commanding generals worked with and through their senior subordinates, not around or despite them. They accorded those responsible subordinates latitude to exercise the responsibilities of their office. As theater commander and army group commander, the illinoian focused on strategy and left operations and tactics with core commanders. Army of the potomac commander mead retained grants respect, although the two generals never became close personally. The other yankee Army CommanderBenjamin F Butler was the quintessential political general of the union army. Despite butlers many shortcomings as a field commander, grant recognized both the massachusetts mans talents and also understood the necessity of working with such an influential politician. Not until butler finally discredited himself with the powder boat fiasco in december of 1864 did the general in chief at last have grounds for removing the insubordinate subordinate. Butlers successor was the able professional soldier and were ordered for whom fred would later be named, who had earned grants respect and friendship in the western theater. Because the illinoisan liked board, he tolerated the Junior Officers quaint conceits. Such antics by other senior subordinates usually cost them grants respect and therefore their command. William f smith, william t h brooks, and Quincy Adams Gilmore were all relieved of their core commands when they demanded actions or promotions that grant was unwilling to grant them. John given almost suffered the same fate and much more tragically by the final hours of the siege. War had so drained the reservoir of good will that he had earned on Little Round Top that neither mead nor grant would save him from the implacable wrath of philip sheridan. Sheridans practice of summarily removing generals on the field of battle was atypical. More characteristic was grants practice of avoiding wholesale housecleanings of subordinates and instead working with or through them before they either succeeded or discredited themselves with either their ineptitude or overweening ambition. Lees command style was similar. Earlier in the war to be sure, he had cleansed the army of Northern Virginia of senior subordinates who had not measured up. By the time petersburg was besieged, however, the terrible attrition of