The loss in April 1865 of the railroad center at Petersburg, just south of Richmond, sealed the doom of the Confederacy. The campaign for Petersburg was a long siege operation of grueling trench warfare marked by bloody battles, incompetence, political maneuvering and cowardice. It was the type of campaign that both Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant had originally wanted to avoid. This dramatic narrative is supplemented by special charts covering strengths and losses for both sides, Confederate desertion rates, and statistics for the Civil War's other sieges.

War Comes to the Cockade City -- The Battle of Old Men and Young Boys -- The Opening Assaults -- War Against the Railroads -- The Battle of the Crater -- The Destruction of the Weldon Railroad -- Fort Harrison and Peebles Farm -- Fair Oaks and Burgess Mill -- The Apple Jack Raid -- The Battle of Hatcher's Run -- The Battle of Fort Stedman -- Five Forks and the Fall of Petersburg.