Battle Of Petersburg, 25 April 1781--Artillery Position

QA-20

On 25 Apr. 1781, Maj. Gen. Friedrich von Steuben's 1,000 Virginia militiamen, driven from the eastern edge of Blandford, established a strong defensive line along the western summit (now Madison Street) above Lieutenant Run valley. Maj. Gen. William Phillips's British force occupied this ridge from here to the Appomattox River. After several unsuccessful infantry attacks, Phillips placed four artillery pieces here and fired on the American line. Facing this threat, and with American ammunition running low, von Steuben decided that any further defense of Petersburg would be futile and ordered a general retreat toward the Pocahontas Bridge to the north.

Department of Historic Resources, 2005

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

John Banister, Lieutenant Colonel John Bannister to Theodorick Bland, 16 May 1781, Bland Papers, Collection of the Director of Tourism and Museums, The City of Petersburg, VA; Robert P. Davis, Where a Man Can Go: Major General William Phillips, British Royal Artillery, 1731-1781 (Westbrook, Ct.: Greenwood Press, 1999); John Frederick Dorman, Virginia Revolutionary Pension Applications, Abstracted. 49 vols. (Washington and Falmouth, VA. 1958); Benson Lossing, The Pictorial Field-Book of the American Revolution; or Illustrations, by Pen and Pencil, of the History, Biography, Scenery, Relics and Traditions of the War for Independence (2 vols. New York: Harper and Bros, 1859); John E. Selby, The Revolution in Virginia: 1775–1783 (Williamsburg, VA: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1988); John Graves Simcoe, Simcoe’s Military Journal: A History of the Operations of a Partisan Corps, called The Queen’s Rangers (New York: Bartlett & Wellford, 1844); Edward A. Wyatt, IV, Along Petersburg Streets: Historic Sites and Buildings of Petersburg, Virginia (Richmond, Va.: Dietz Press, 1943).