Synopses & Reviews
Few wartime cities in Virginia held more importance thanPetersburg. Nonetheless, the city has, until now, lacked an adequate militaryhistory, let alone a history of the civilian home front. The noted Civil Warhistorian A. Wilson Greene now provides an expertly researched, eloquently writtenstudy of the city that was second only to Richmond in size and strategicsignificance. Industrial, commercial, and extremely prosperous, Petersburg was alsohome to a large African American community, including the state's highest percentageof free blacks. On the eve of the Civil War, the city elected a conservative, pro-Union approach to the sectional crisis. Little more than a month beforeVirginia's secession did Petersburg finally express pro-Confederate sentiments, atwhich point the city threw itself wholeheartedly into the effort, with large numbersof both white and black men serving. Over the next four years, Petersburg's citizenswatched their once-beautiful city become first a conduit for transient soldiers fromthe Deep South, then an armed camp, and finally the focus of one of the Civil War'smost protracted and damaging campaigns. (The fall of Richmond and collapse of theConfederate war effort in Virginia followed close on Grant's ultimate success inPetersburg.) At war's end, Petersburg's antebellum prosperity evaporated underpressures from inflation, chronic shortages, and the extensive damage done by Unionartillery shells. Greene's book tracks both Petersburg's civilian experience and thecity's place in Confederate military strategy and administration. Employing scoresof unpublished sources, the book weaves a uniquely personal story of thousands ofcitizens--free blacks, slaves and their holders, factory owners, merchants--all ofwhom shared a singular experience in Civil War Virginia.