Grant didn't get bogged down until he got to Richmond and Petersburg, he campaigned actively the month of May and kept moving toward Lee's lifeline of Richmond-Petersburg. His stealing a march on Lee crossing the James River was brilliant and except for the incompetence of Grant's subordinates and Beauregard pulling Lee's ass out of the fire, the war in Virginia might have ended in June 1864.

I think your assessment of starving Lee out after that is pretty true but it wasn't so much due to a lack of foodstuff as it was to the transportation system to get it to Lee. If the Yankees weren't breaking the rail lines, it was poor railroad infrastructure, especially multiple rail gauges throughout the south, that killed them. There are many accounts in late '64 and '65 of cars loaded with food on the railroads in the Carolinas destined for Lee's Army that were rotting in the cars because they couldn't move them to the army.

The failure to capture Petersburg on the march can't entirely be blamed on incompetent subordinates. One of the first units thrown at Petersburg was Hancock's II Corps, and Hancock was probably the best corps commander in the Union army at that point. The problem was that the Army of the Potomac, and it's component parts, even the best ones, were worn out after several months of near constant fighting and marching.

The technical military term is the culmination point - the point at which an attacking force has reached the limit of it's logistics and the endurance of its troops. Beyond this point, significant further offensive action is impossible, and indeed invites disaster if the enemy has the ability to counterattack. (See Kasserine Pass for an example of this). The attacker needs to pause, refit, repair, reorganize, and resupply before resuming the offense.

That is the state of the Army of the Potomac when they approached Petersburg. If they could have beaten Beauregard to the city, they would have been able to hold it. But they were too worn out to capture it once it was defended.

Oh my, I could write an essay in response but not having that sort of time, here is a quick reply.

The Second Corps and Hancock at Petersburg were not the same Second Corps and Hancock that fought at Gettysburg. Hancock was still suffering from his wound at Gettysburg and to your point the Second Corps was worn out and had reached the point that they knew when an attack was useless or dumb. That attitude made it doubly worse and they would go to ground quickly when ordered to attack. The entire Army of the Potomac had sort of reached that point but the once vaunted Second Corps never performed in the Petersburg Campaign up to their previous performance as a corps.

That said, it wasn't the Second Corps that led the way at Petersburg but "Baldy" Smith's Corps. They arrived at the defenses of Petersburg and then spent a day getting prepared for an attack on the city when the only forces facing them were a few thousand militia of old men and boys. This delay is what gave Beauregard time to save the city. IMO the failure to capture Petersburg had more to do with "Baldy" Smith than a tired AoP.

You guys are just about the only audience I know who will get this humor.

This is an excerpt from "The Dog That Bit People" by James Thurber. It is hilarious, and involves one of Thurber's elderly relatives who had fought with Grant at Chattanooga. Muggs is the name of the nefarious Airedale who loves to bite. Roy is Thurber's brother.

Quote:

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Muggs at his meals was an unusual sight. Because of the fact that if you reached toward the floor he would bite you, we usually put his food plate on top of an old kitchen table with a bench alongside the table. Muggs would stand on the bench and eat. I remember that my mother's Uncle Horatio, who boasted that he was the third man up Missionary Ridge, was splutteringly indignant when he found out that we fed the dog on a table because we were afraid to put his plate on the floor. He said he wasn't afraid of any dog that ever lived and that he would put the dog's plate on the floor if we would give it to him. Roy said that if Uncle Horatio had fed Muggs on the ground just before the battle he would have been the first man up Missionary Ridge.

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