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Indiana University 
intended to cross this bridge, cut the Pennsylvania Railroad, 
and attack Harrisburg from the rear, but the fleeing Penn- 
sylvania militia burned the Columbia bridge and prevented 
Early from crossing. 
Early in the war the Confederates found it difficult to feed 
their troops around Richmond, and after the capture of Vicks- 
burg, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Atlanta, Lee had to de- 
pend upon an ever-narrowing region to the south and south- 
west of the Confederate capital for his supplies.^^ He readily 
saw the value of Petersburg as a railroad center, and when 
he occupied it he desired the Confederate government to 
abandon the Weldon Railway line and get supplies over the 
Danville Railroad because the former would be hard to defend, 
but he was asked to defend both.^- Grant fully appreciated 
the importance of the railroads to the existence of Lee’s army 
and especially after the disastrous attacks on Lee’s intrench- 
ments in the summer of 1864, began the systematic destruc- 
tion of all Confederate lines he could reach. His concentrated 
attack on Petersburg was a premediated attempt to cut off 
the two lines of communication meeting here and very neces- 
sary for the support of Richmond. Petersburg lies twenty- 
two miles south of Richmond and is connected with the latter 
city by railroad and turnpike. Two railroads of importance 
begin here : the road to Weldon leaving the city on the south, 
and the South Side line, running to Lynchburg and connect- 
ing with the Richmond and Danville Railroad at Burkesville. 
When Petersburg and these roads fell into Grant’s hands there 
was left to Lee the alternative of surrendering at once or 
retreating toward Appomattox Court House along the only 
line held by the Confederates. 
In some respects the armies in the West had bigger trans- 
portation problems than those in the East because the former 
had such a large field of operation. The fact is often over- 
looked that the Army of the Potomac was never many miles 
Alexander, Military Memoirs of a Confederate, a Critical Narrative, 431-434. 
McCabe, Life and Campaigns of General Robert E. Lee, 524. 
43 Colonel Thomas L. Livermore in, “Again the Tissue of History”, in Massachusetts 
Historical Society Proceedings, 1914-1915, XLVIH, 94, mentions the following: July 7, 
Sheridan against Virginia Central, north of Richmond ; July 22, Wilson against Weldon, 
Lynchburg, and Danbury ; McCabe, Life and Campaigns of General Robert E. Lee, men- 
tions : Heth, August 18, destroyed a part of the railroad south of Reams Station, and 
Sheridan, on Febi'uary 27-March 3, destroyed part of the Virginia Central. 
44 Long and Wright, Memoirs of Robert E, Lee, 370 ; also McCabe, Life and Cam- 
paigns of General Robert E. Lee, 569, 
