The Siege of Petersburg Ends
- Oliver Groom
- Aug 24
- 5 min read
Updated: 14 hours ago
Abstract: The Siege of Petersburg Ends. The Union takes control of Petersburg and Richmond on April 3, 1865. Quotes from letters of soldiers: Thomas Geer, Esek W. Hoff, and Daniel B. Hutchins.
Original written by siblings George & Deb McGraw, December 2023. Revised and edited by Erika Newcombe, Deb Hall, and Oliver Groom, August 2026.
As the final year of the war started and the siege continued, the 412 active-duty men of the 111th were in winter quarters around Petersburg, spending their time on picket duty, in the trenches, doing drill, or in cold dreary tents.
The weather was a biting cold that infiltrated the soldiers’ bones. Rain, sleet, and snow made participating in basic life activities difficult. Sickness was overrunning the camps, as there were no antibiotics to treat pneumonia or other diseases.
Twelve men of the 111th regiment died of disease in January, February, and March 1865; many more were convalescing in hospitals. The Confederates were in even more difficult circumstances, for food and clothing became scarce as the siege wore on.
Consequently, desertions were a regular occurrence with sometimes dozens crossing over into Union custody. Letters from 111th men regularly commented on the poor condition of the deserters while also noting they were usually amenable men. During the year ahead, the 111th would be involved in engagements at Hatcher’s Run, White Oak Ridge, and the final assault on Petersburg as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant tried to destroy Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.
The Union finally took control of Petersburg at dawn on April 3. They took Richmond that evening, the culmination of ten long months of fighting for the Confederate capital. The first three months of 1865 would be tough not only on the regiment at Petersburg but also for the men in Confederate prison camps: 25 wounded, seven killed in action, one captured, one deserter, 12 dead of disease, and 26 dead in captivity.
Nineteen prisoners were paroled and made it back to Union hospitals. Pvt. Thomas Glinn of Co. K escaped from Salisbury Prison and returned to Union lines in early March. Yet, as this excerpt from a letter illustrates, the men did not lose their admittedly grim sense of humor:
“But as I am hard up for a subject tonight, I will tell one more story about Uncle Abraham.”
He was passing through one of the hospitals in Washington, DC, one day with some ladies. Among them was Mrs. Chase at the time whose husband was Secretary of War. They came to the bedside of a good-looking wounded soldier, and Mrs. Chase asked him where he was wounded (as all women would). His answer: Gettysburg.
“Whereabout did you say you was hit at Gettysburg?” Mrs. Chase asked. And thinking she might be offended at something passed on. As they passed on along, “Uncle Abe” spoke to him asking, “My man where are you hit?”
“In the privates.” And as he caught up with the ladies, they asked him and insisted on his telling what made him unwilling to tell. “Well, ladies if you had been hit where he was, it would not have touched you.”
A letter written by Sgt. Thomas Geer of Co. A on January 13 reported:
“There is nothing going on here only a new lookout or signal station … it is to be 140 feet. I think they will be able to look over on the Johnnies when they get it done … The last time I was on picket a fellow from our Regiment tried to desert to the enemy in the night. He got lost in the woods and came back to our lines thinking they were the Rebels. I do not know what they will do with him. He ought to be shot. He is a sub [substitute who had been paid to take the place of another man] … The more such men as those we get the worse we are off. I have seen seven men hung and one shot since we have been here all for desertion. Money brought them out.”
On January 26, Sgt. Geer wrote about the fight the previous day:
“About noon we marched out. The whole line advanced, drove the Rebels to their works, then they came out and charged us. We all had a chance to smell powder. There was some awful fighting here … Our loss in killed and wounded must have been heavy and the Rebels a good deal worse. We took a good many prisoners… I think we shall have a chance to try them again soon. I was pretty lucky yesterday. I got one pretty close call but a miss is as good as a mile.”
On January 7, 2nd Lt. Esek W. Hoff of Co. K wrote:
“… In the morning I went out near the woods in front of the picket line and the Rebs were singing as they would at home in the spring time knowing no war. No bloodshed. The came in four rebel deserters on our brigade front, one of them from the 7th Tennessee … He was a tall fine-looking man apparently forty years old … and I should judge six feet and a half in height. A perfect giant in size … they say that there are more coming as soon as opportunity offers. Where we are on picket, we place outside of the posts say some sixty or seventy yards. These deserters say that they do not. They place theirs in the rear so as to watch their own men as well as ourselves.”
Later in the month, Esek wrote: “… The reason that I quit writing so suddenly was that our regiment was in the line. And we expected to have a brush. As it turned out only a scare. All the truth was that some Johnny’s were after some corn out near where we went to Hatcher’s run and someone got up a yarn that we were to be attacked.”
As for POWs, the diary of Sgt. Daniel B. Hutchins of Co. D concluded in 1864 that he was suffering from severe rheumatism and starvation. His last entry was December 31:
“Cloudy & rainy laid in my tent nearly all day took a knapp which is strange for me to do in the day time feel very dull & gloomy Oh God have mercy on us poor starved wretches & restore us to the bosoms of our Friends.”
Hutchins and several of his fellow 111th POWs survived their time at the Florence Stockade, and were paroled in the spring. They recovered in hospitals and went home in the summer of 1865 as the war ended.
The Wayne County Historical Society encourages anyone with family members who served and lived in Wayne or Cayuga Counties during the 1860s to contact the Wayne County Historical Society at info@waynehistory.org or (315) 946-4943. If you are not sure about your Civil War ancestry, you can follow up with the link below:
Photos:
The Battle of Petersburg, Va., April 2nd 1865, lithograph by Currier and Ives
Thomas Geer
Esek W Hoff in his older years
“Counting Us Off,” depicts daily head counting at the Florence Stockade in South Carolina - Artist James E. Taylor
Sources:
New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs, One Hundred and Eleventh Infantry, in Annual Report of the Adjutant-General of the State of New York for the Year 1900: Registers of the One Hundred and Eleventh Infantry, accessed July 2, 2026, “111th Infantry Civil War Roster”
Wayne Historians Organization. Wayne County Civil War Soldiers. Accessed July 2, 2026. “Wayne County Civil War Soldiers”
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