Grant's Crossing
In mid-June 1864, Grant abandoned his works at Cold Harbor and marched to Petersburg, a vital rail center. A mile south of here, at Wilcox Wharf (now Lawrence Lewis Jr. Park), steamboats ferried the troops and wagons of two corps across the James River on 14-15 June. Three miles downstream, at Weyanoke Point, Union engineers built a 700-yard-long pontoon bridge in seven hours on 14 June. For three days parts of two corps, as well as supply, ammunition, and ambulance wagons, crossed the bridge in a column 50 miles long. Engineers then dismantled the bridge. Grant's attack on the Confederate lines at Petersburg failed, and the armies settled into a ten-month siege.
Marker is at the intersection of John Tyler Memorial Highway (Virginia Route 5) and Wilcox Wharf Road (Virginia Route 618), on the right when traveling east on John Tyler Memorial Highway.
Courtesy hmdb.org
