With the Union army’s failure to capture Petersburg directly, attention shifted to the Western Front as the railroads supplying the city became the focus of the Federal army for the next eight months.

During this time the trench lines along the Battle of the Crater site remained relatively quiet, other than the routine exchange of rifle and artillery fire. This routine was repeated daily along the Eastern Front, until Lee’s final grand offensive of the war – the Battle of Fort Stedman on March 25, 1865.