For almost ten months beginning in mid-June 1864, the Army of the Potomac besieged Petersburg and Richmond from the east and south as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant extended Union fortifications west of Petersburg and launched frequent attacks there and near Richmond, forcing Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee to stretch his thin defensive lines and shift his outnumbered troops. On April 3, 1865, Lee evacuated west after the Federal breakthrough at Petersburg, and Union forces occupied both cities. Laurel Hill Church marked the farthest westward Federal advance toward Richmond during the two-pronged attacks on the city’s Confederate defenses on September 29, 1864. After helping capture New Market Heights, Union Gen. Robert S. Foster’s X Corps division reached this area early in the afternoon and found the 3rd Richmond Howitzers and Confederate Gen. Martin W. Gary’s dismounted cavalry blocking New Market Road. Foster formed his brigades in two lines and advanced under devastating fire from the roadway and nearby Fort Gilmer, and the assault overwhelmed the Confederate position on New Market Road. Instead of continuing toward Richmond, Foster turned to silence Fort Gilmer. U.S. Colored Troops, who had fought earlier that morning at New Market Heights, joined the attack on the fort, but the Confederates repulsed the assault and abruptly ended the Federal strike at Richmond. Laurel Hill Methodist Church, built in 1857 for a rural congregation and possibly named for nearby laurel trees, served as a field hospital after the battles on September 29, 1864, survived the war, and was destroyed by fire in 1951.
