Grant Grant's Operations at Vicksburg vs Petersburg

Once Grant placed Warren's corp on the Weldon Railroad, and General Lee could not drive it off, the end was in sight.
Lee and Grant most likely had a good approximation of the tonnage that was required in Richmond and Petersburg, as compared to the tonnage that the Southside and Danville Railroads could deliver.
In addition, once the Weldon Railroad was broken, it would be impossible for the remaining railroads to move reinforcements to Georgia in time to oppose Sherman's army.
For Grant and Lee these were just probabilities. The following months turned them into certainties.
 
Posts in the thread to date have not noted the Grant's operations extended beyond the Petersburg lines. The Federal lines extended across the Appomattox River to the James River at Bermuda Hundred and north of the James as well. During the early months of the siege Grant was able to yoyo Lee back and forth by feinting an operation north of the James in the Deep Bottom / Chaffin's Farm area. When Lee moved troops in response Grant would move west at Petersburg, cutting off another chunk of Lee's communication south. This resulted in costly battles along the Weldon Railroad, Reams Station and other locations.

As autumn approached the number of full scale battles decreased, but Grant was able to pin Lee's entire First Corps (again commanded by Longstreet as he recovered from his wound) and some cavalry units to the east of Richmond. What remained of Pickett's Division manned the Howlett Line at Bermuda Hundred. As the spring campaigning season opened in 1865, Lee was stretched way to thin as Grant prepared to move west again.
 
I find it strange that Grant gave half-hearted approval to the somewhat gimmicky Crater operation, while not trying the "normal" way of doing sieges, even after the experience of Vicksburg, where as I understand it the mining operations had mixed results, while the regular old parallel trenches did their job just fine.

I too have pondered this and wonder what would’ve been accomplished had the rebel works been carried, a rebel retreat from Petersburg and a return to a war of movement I suppose. More likely a single breakthrough in a long extended line would’ve been contained anyway.

Mining was often successful as a means of breaching works. Not in our war but in others going back to ancient times when a wall would be undermined and then the timber propping in the mine was burned, the collapse of the mine bringing down the wall.

During the Great War the British blew some huge mines under the German lines and carried those German lines. Many of the craters still exist, those in Belgium along the Messines Ridge having the appearance of peaceful ponds. And some that didn’t blow still exist underground, stuffed with tons of high explosives.

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