Also in May, the armies led by Grant and Lee did battle at The Wilderness and then at Spotsylvania Court House, in quick succession. Neither battle resulted in anything but a high number of deaths on both sides. The difference, though, was that rather than retreating, as McClellan and Burnside and Hooker had done, Grant continued in his drive toward Richmond, the Confederate capital.

Lee lost another of his trusted commanders at the Battle of Yellow Tavern, as his dynamic cavalry commander J.E.B. Stuart suffered fatal wounds. The Army of Northern Virginia, though, was still able to inflict heavy casualties on the Army of the Potomac, as Grant and Meade committed large numbers of troops to a frontal assault at Cold Harbor that failed to dislodge the defenders. The next target for Grant was Petersburg.

Lee certainly thought that Grant was finally going to attack Richmond. Grant, however, wanted Petersburg, a city 23 miles to the south of Richmond that was a vital railway junction, connecting the capital to the north and North Carolina, in which was still open the port of Wilmington.

In a rare success, the Union command outfoxed the Confederate command and, on June 12, got its troops across the James River unopposed and on the road to Petersburg, erecting a 2,100-foot-long pontoon bridge to do so. On June 15, the first fighting began.

At this time, most of the Confederate force was elsewhere. Defending Petersburg were a few thousand troops under the command of Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard. Attacking those troops on June 15 were 10,000 Union troops from Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler's Army of the James, under the command of Gen. William Smith.

Butler had attacked the city on June 9, before Grant and his troops began their move south, but had been repulsed. They got another chance six days later.

The fortifications at Petersburg were extensive, and the smaller defending force held off the larger attacking force, despite the latter having some temporary successes. Lee, racing back to Petersburg with the Army of Northern Virginia, arrived and began to add his troops to the city's defense, both on patrol and in building further fortifications.

On June 16, the numbers were still very much in the Union's favor, with 50,000 troops ready to face off against 14,000 Confederate troops. Attacks by a force under Ambrose Burnside and Winfield Scott Hancock did little damage to the defenders and, after fierce counterattacks, were called off.

By June 18, the Union force ringing Petersburg approached 67,000 men in strength. By that time, however, a number of subsequent futile attacks resulting in casualties exceeding 11,000 had convinced Grant that a full-scale assault on the city would result in nothing more than added bloodshed with no purpose. The Union soldiers dug trenches around the city and settled in for a siege. They didn't entirely surround the city, though.

The ensconced defenders repealed attack after attack. Grant knew that a prolonged siege would be difficult for his troops as well. With this in mind, he had, in late June, approved a plan to dig a tunnel underneath the Confederate defenses, plant explosives, and then set them off, using the resulting distraction as cover for a fierce attack that he hoped would break through Petersburg's vaunted defensive fortifications. By the end of July, the 20-foot-deep shaft was 511 feet long and was underneath Elliott's Sailent, a fort right in the middle of the First Corps defensive line. At the end of the shaft was a large chamber that housed 8,000 pounds of explosives.

The troops detonated the charges at 4:44 a.m. on July 30. The result was a resounding explosion that shattered everything in its surroundings, killing hundreds of Confederate soldiers, blowing to bits their guns and fortifications, and creating a crater that was 170 feet long, 30 feet deep, and up to 80 feet wide. What should have been a benefit for the attacking Union troops was a disaster, as soldiers got stuck in the crater and made easy targets for defenders with guns. After a high number of deaths, the Union called off the attack.

Skirmishes continued into September and through October, and then both sides settled in for the winter. A brief battle at Hatcher's Run in February 1865 was inconclusive. However, the winter, the lack of reliable supply lines, and the length of the siege had taken its toll on the Confederate army.

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