Fort Davis

After four days of unsuccessful attempts to capture Petersburg by direct assault on June 15-18, 1864, Gen. U.S. Grant’s Union army began siege operations against the city. Grant’s immediate objective was to cut one of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s supply routes, the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad. Moving westward against the rail line in this area on June 21-23, Union forces were stopped short of reaching their goal, but they extended their trench lines across the Jerusalem Plank Road, now known as Crater Road. To protect this position, construction began on a large earthen fortification initially called Fort Warren, named for Fifth Corps commander Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren. A Union soldier assigned to the work recalled that it covered about three acres, could hold a brigade, included a trench twenty feet wide and ten feet deep with the rampart thrown up on the inside, was square with a diagonal through it, and contained a magazine and two wells, while eight men were needed to move a shovelful of dirt from the bottom of the ditch to the top of the work. The completed fort held a garrison of 550 men with eight field guns. On July 11, Col. P. Stearns Davis of the 39th Massachusetts Infantry was mortally wounded nearby by a piece of exploding artillery shell while sitting with the unit’s surgeon, and the fort was renamed in his honor.

Petersburg, Virginia · United States