February 13, 1865
Federal expedition from Bermuda Hundred to Fearnsville and to Smithfield, VA, finds no Confederate resistance of any kind in this area. 12/11-15/1865.
Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant returns to City Point and the Siege of Petersburg after a short trip to Washington, D. C.
Union Seconds Corps commander Andrew A. Humphreys is granted a 10 day leave of absence.
Humphreys reports that an extension of the permanent Union fortifications is nearly complete to Hatcher’s Run, with his infantry parapets and slashings out to 800 yards finished, and the five artillery batteries along this portion of the lines almost done.
Major General Gouverneur K. Warren uses 1,000 men of his Fifth Corps to work on a battery north of the Vaughan Road, helping to guard the far left flank of the Union Army of the Potomac.
The pickets of the Army of the James scatter newspapers containing President Lincoln’s report of the Hampton Roads Peace Conference, which had been held on February 3, 1865, to their Confederate counterparts in an attempt to demoralize the Southern troops.
Company A, 2nd Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery, is ordered from the defenses of Bermuda Hundred at the Siege of Petersburg to Major General Alfred H. Terry’s command at Fort Fisher, North Carolina.
Note: All “Today In The Petersburg Campaign” blog entries are used with permission from Ronald A. Mosocco’s Chronological Tracking of the American Civil War per the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion. Order the book HERE.
Copyright © 1993, 1994 by Ronald A. Mosocco