The history of Petersburg, Virginia, United States as a modern settlement begins in the 17th century when it was first settled. The city was incorporated in 1748. It was occupied by the British during the American Revolutionary War, and Major-General William Phillips died of fever at Blandford (later a neighborhood of Petersburg) during bombardment from the Marquis de Lafayette's positions north of the river. After the war, it became a destination for many free blacks in Virginia, as well as a growing hub for railroads. By 1860, it was the second largest city in Virginia. For nine months in 1864 and 1865 it was the subject of the Siege of Petersburg; the fall of the city unleashed a chain of events over the following two weeks that resulted in the end of the American Civil War. After the war, it again flourished as a destination for Freedmen. Petersburg was a notable focal point in the organization of the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-20th century. In the late 20th century, the city suffered significant economic decline.
Indigenous people
In 2006 archaeological excavations at Pocahontas Island found evidence of prehistoric Native American settlement dated to 6500 B.C. This is in the early third of the Archaic Period (8000 to 1000 BC). Varying cultures of indigenous peoples lived in the area for thousands of years.
When the English arrived in Virginia in 1607, the region was occupied by the Appamatuck, a significant tribe of the Powhatan Confederacy. They were governed by a weroance, King Coquonosum, and by his sister, Queen Opossunoquonuske. This Algonquian-speaking people later had a town at Rohoic Creek (formerly Rohowick or Indian Towne Run), on the western edge of present-day Petersburg.
Colonial period
Petersburg was founded and settled by English colonists. By 1635 they had patented land along the south bank of the Appomattox River as far west as present-day Sycamore Street, and about inland. In 1646, the Virginia Colony established Fort Henry a short distance from the Appamatuck town, near the falls. Col. Abraham Wood sent several famous expeditions out from here in the following years to explore points to the west, as far as the Appalachian Mountains.
Some time around 1675, Wood's son-in-law, Peter Jones, who then commanded the fort and traded with the Indians, opened a trading post nearby, known as Peter's Point. The Bolling family, prominent tobacco planters and traders, also lived in the area from the early 18th century. In 1733, Col. William Byrd II (who founded Richmond at the same time) conceived plans for a city at Peter's Point, to be renamed Petersburgh. The Virginia General Assembly formally incorporated both Petersburg and adjacent Blandford on December 17, 1748. Wittontown, north of the river, was settled in 1749, and became incorporated as Pocahontas in 1752. Petersburg was enlarged slightly in 1762, adding to "Old Town".James H. Bailey, Old Petersburg, p. 16.
During the American Revolutionary War, the British drive to regain control erupted in the Battle of Blanford in 1781, which started just east of Petersburg. As the Americans retreated north across the Appomattox River, they took up the planks of the Pocahontas bridge to delay the enemy. Although the British drove the Americans from Blanford and Petersburg, they did not regain a strategic advantage in the war. Cornwallis' forces surrendered at Yorktown soon after this battle.
Antebellum period After the Revolutionary War, in 1784 Petersburg annexed the adjacent towns of Blandford (also called Blanford) and Pocahontas and the suburb of Ravenscroft, which became neighborhoods of the city. In 1790 its population totaled 2,828, making it one of the largest settlements in the country. An area known as Gillfield was annexed in 1798.James H. Bailey, Old Petersburg, p. 17.
In the first two decades after the war, inspired by the Revolution's principles of equality, numerous Virginia slaveholders manumitted their slaves. Some of those freed were the mixed-race "natural children" of white planters, born to enslaved mothers outside of legal marriage. The number of free blacks in Virginia rose markedly between 1782 and 1810. Because of the availability of jobs in Petersburg, many free people of color in Virginia migrated to the growing urban community. They established First Baptist (1774) and Gillfield Baptist Church (1797), the first and second oldest black congregations in the city and two of the oldest in the nation."Gillfield Baptist Church, Petersburg, VA" , Virginia Commonwealth University Library, 2008, accessed 22 December 2008"First Baptist Church, Petersburg" , African American Heritage, accessed 22 December 2008 The black churches were the first Baptist churches established in Petersburg.Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The 'Invisible Institution' in the Antebellum South, Oxford University Press, p. 137, accessed 27 December 2008
For years the center of the free black residential area was Pocahontas Island, a peninsula on the north shore of the Appomattox River. With access to waterways and a sympathetic population, this neighborhood was an important site on the Underground Railroad. One surviving house in the Pocahontas Island Historic District is associated with it.
The Pocahontas Island Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 3, 2006. The Pocahontas Island Black History Museum, established in 2003 by Richard Stewart, is located on Pocahontas Island. It was once a stop on the Underground Railroad, and features artifacts and other historical items from over 200 years of black history."Petersburg: Pocahontas Island Historic District", National Park Service, accessed 1 July 2018
The Port of Petersburg became renowned as a commercial center for processing cotton, tobacco and metal, then shipping products out of the region. The city became an important industrial center in a mostly agricultural state with few major cities.
Residents' devotion to the cause during the War of 1812 led to the formation of the Petersburg Volunteers—who distinguished themselves in action at the Siege of Fort Meigs on May 5, 1813. President James Madison called Petersburg "Cockade of the Union" (or "Cockade City"), in honor of the cockades which Volunteers wore on their caps.James H. Bailey, Old Petersburg, p. 18-19.
In 1815, a fire destroyed much of the business district.
Flourishing businesses helped the city make improvements. Starting in 1813, the city paved its streets. A development company created a canal to bypass the Appomattox Falls. Next came railroad lines to link the city to all points of the compass. As travel technology developed in the mid-19th century, Petersburg became established as a railroad center, with lines completed to Richmond to the north, Farmville and Lynchburg to the west, and Weldon, North Carolina to the south. The last major line was completed in 1858 to the east, with the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad connecting to an ocean port.
In 1851 the city introduced gas lighting and by 1857 installed a new municipal water system. All these civic improvements helped attract and hold a substantial business community, based on manufacture of tobacco products, but also including cotton and flour mills, and banking.
Civil War
At the time of the American Civil War, Petersburg was the second largest city in Virginia, and the seventh-largest city in the Confederacy. Its 1860 population was 18,266, half of whom were black. Free blacks numbered 3,224 (one-third) and had been attracted to the city for the opportunities in industries and trades."National Register Nominations: Pocahontas Island Historic District", Heritage Matters, Jan-Feb 2008, National Park Service, accessed 30 December 2008 Petersburg's population had the highest percentage of free African Americans of any city in the Confederacy and the largest number of free blacks in the Mid-Atlantic. Many had settled on Pocahontas Island. Because of its significant past and prehistoric archaeological evidence, the Pocahontas Island Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Ninety percent of the population are native Virginians, as most of their ancestors had been in the state since the 17th and 18th centuries.
When the Civil War began in 1861, Petersburg was strategic. The city provided several infantry companies and artillery units to the Confederate Army, along three troops of cavalry. In April 1861 more than 300 free Petersburg African Americans volunteered to work on the fortifications of Norfolk, Virginia under their own leader. Slaveholders also contributed the labor of numerous black slaves."Black Confederate Soldiers of Petersburg", Petersburg Express, accessed 22 December 2008
In 1864, Petersburg became a target during the Overland Campaign of Union General Ulysses S. Grant. The numerous railroads made Petersburg a lifeline for Richmond, the Confederate capital. The depot at Pocahontas Island, built for the Richmond & Petersburg rail line, was a transit point for Confederate troops and supplies.
Petersburg was the headquarters of the Confederate Army's Second Regiment of Engineers, whose members included Benjamin Morgan Harrod, a Harvard-trained civil engineer who later designed the water and sewer systems of his native New Orleans, Louisiana.
After his defeat at the Battle of Cold Harbor, Grant remained east of Richmond and moved south to Petersburg. Grant intended to cut the rail lines into Petersburg, stopping Richmond's supplies. On June 9, troops led by William F. "Baldy" Smith of the 18th Corps, attacked the Dimmock Line, a series of defensive breastworks constructed in 1861 and 1862 to protect Petersburg against the Army of the Potomac under General George McClellan during the Peninsula Campaign. The Confederate troops numbered only 2,000, but Smith and Winfield S. Hancock were hesitant to attack the fortified line. Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard informed Lee that he was facing virtually the entire the Army of the Potomac with his few defenders at Petersburg. Lee arrived with the fabled Army of Northern Virginia, and the 292-day Siege of Petersburg began. Lee himself admitted that the South could not win a siege war.
The trench lines on the east of Petersburg were close together. A soldier in the 48th Pennsylvania Infantry of the Union Army IX Corp, a coal miner in civilian life, remarked, "We could blow that battery into oblivion if we could dig a mine underneath it." Colonel Henry Pleasants, his division commander, liked the idea and forwarded it up the chain of command. Grant gave his approval. On July 30, the explosives in the tunnel were detonated. Due to botched Union leadership and arrival of Confederate General William Mahone, the Union forces suffered a disastrous defeat at the Battle of the Crater, suffering over 4,000 casualties. The battle was portrayed in the film Cold Mountain (2003). By the end of the war, the city was ringed with a series of fortifications.
In early April 1865, Union troops finally managed to push their left flank to the railroad to Weldon, North Carolina and the Southside Railroad. With the loss of Petersburg's crucial lifelines, the Confederate forces had to retreat, ending the siege in a victory for the Union Army.
The fall of Petersburg meant that Richmond could no longer be defended, Lee attempted to lead his men south to join up with Confederate forces in North Carolina. Hopelessly outnumbered, he was surrounded and forced to surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9, 1865. Confederate General Ambrose P. (A.P.) Hill died on the last day the Confederates held the Petersburg trenches. Petersburg established a warfare precedent. During World War I the armies on both sides used trenches extensively in Europe (q.v. trench warfare).
Reconstruction era