Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.
Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.
Slide Show: Want to see the pictures as a slide show?
[Slideshow]
Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.
Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]
Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
PETEB1_130919_029.JPG: Prelude to Petersburg:
1864 Overland Campaign:
On May 4, 1864, the Federal Army crossed the Rapidan River twenty miles west of Fredericksburg. The next day Confederate General Robert E. Lee's forces struck the Union army in the Wilderness, opening a month-long campaign of nearly non-stop fighting and staggering casualty totals.
After the Wilderness, Lee attempted to block Union General Ulysses S. Grant's southward drive toward Richmond at Spotsylvania Court House, then along the North Anna River, again at Totopotomoy Creek and finally at Cold Harbor, just eight miles from Richmond. At Cold Harbor, Grant's headlong assaults into Lee's line on June 1 and June 3 failed. Undaunted, he marched his army south to Petersburg and began the long process of cutting Richmond's supply lines.
Wilderness:
The fighting in the thick woods west of Fredericksburg produced nearly 30,000 casualties but no clear winner.
Spotsylvania Court House:
Grant ignored the indecisive results of the Wilderness and pressed southward. Lee blocked him here and for two weeks close to 200,000 men fought for an advantage.
North Anna River and Totopotomoy Creek:
These two engagements forced Grant to continue moving to Lee's right as the Union forces searched for a way to capture Richmond.
Cold Harbor:
Major attacks on the Confederate lines bring the total number of casualties to around 90,000 men in six weeks of fighting. Grant's failure here turns his attention to Petersburg, ending the "overland" portion of the 1864 campaign.
PETEB1_130919_037.JPG: The Siege of Petersburg
"I would not believe before I came here that man was capable of enduring so much."
-- Lawrence Bradley, 1st Mass. Heavy Artillery
If Petersburg fell, the Confederate capital at Richmond would fall too. Grant knew it; Lee knew it. And for nine months in 1864 and 1865 Union and Confederate armies waged a brutal campaign here that left the Confederacy on the verge of total defeat.
At Petersburg, the war in Virginia transformed from a whirlwind succession of marches and battles into a methodical struggle of endurance and hardship.
Touring the Battlefield:
Petersburg National Battlefield includes four major historic areas. A driving tour links the main park unit, Five Forks Battlefield, and Flank and Defense Roads.
The City Point Unit is located eight miles northeast of the visitor center in the city of Hopewell. You can start your visit in the visitor center, where brochures and additional tour information are available.
(1) The main park unit includes sites that span the entire siege, including the Union capture of part of the Dimmock Line in June 1864, the spectacular blast at the "Crater" in July, and Lee's last offensive, at Fort Stedman, in March 1865.
(2) Flank Road and Defense Road link fortifications and battle sites related to the Union's incessant efforts to cut the rail lines leading into Petersburg - efforts that ultimately stretched the Confederate defense lines to their breaking point.
(3) At Five Forks on April 1, 1865 the Union army defeated and scattered one-fifth of Lee's entire force. Petersburg and Richmond fell within two days.
(4) During the siege, City Point was one of the busiest ports in America. From his headquarters there, Ulysses S. Grant directed the movement of Union armies throughout the South.
PETEB1_130919_061.JPG: Siege of Petersburg -- Grant's First Offensive:
June 1864 Initial Assaults:
Union General Ulysses S. Grant wanted to capture Richmond -- capital of the Confederacy. Grant knew that the key to Richmond was Petersburg which was lightly defended by Confederate forces. Failing to take Richmond by approaching from the north, Grant surprised Lee by attacking Petersburg in the south. With Union General Benjamin Butler's forces to help strengthen his drive to Petersburg, Grant reached Petersburg's defenses, here where you are standing, on June 15, 1864.
General PTG Beauregard, the Confederate commander in Petersburg held off Union attacks for the next two days and kept the city in Confederate hands. Beauregard brought more of his own troops down from the Bermuda Hundred lines, rebuilding Confederate defenses, and finally receiving reinforcements from Lee late on June 17th. At the end of the battle on June 18, 1864 Lee still held Petersburg -- the key to Richmond.
May 31-June 12, 1864 -- Lee defeats Grant at Cold Harbor, stalling Grant's attempt on Richmond.
June 15, 1864 -- Grant surprises Lee by attacking Petersburg. This attack on Petersburg was part of Grant's plan to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond.
June 17, 1864 -- Lee sends reinforcements to Petersburg.
PETEB1_130919_066.JPG: Battery 5 Trail
On the ground before you the first major attacks against Petersburg occurred. This bloodletting marked the beginning of nine months of siege.
This 0.6-mile trail will take you through Battery 5 of the Confederate Dimmock Line, captured by the Federals on June 15, 1864. Along the way you will also see the position of the famous Union mortar, the "Dictator."
The walk includes a set of stairs and a moderate (10% slope). Mobility-impaired visitors can reach the position of the "Dictator" by taking the right fork of the trail.
PETEB1_130919_070.JPG: Uprooted by War
"Every tree, stump, and fence has disappeared… What was once verdant is now a wasteland of dust and dirt."
-- John Haley, 17th Maine Infantry January 26, 1865
The gentle depression in front of you is the only vestige of the Josiah Jordon House. The house was dismantled by Union troops during the Siege of Petersburg.
War came to the Jordon farm in late 1862, when Confederate engineer Charles Dimmock laid out ten miles of defenses to protect Petersburg. Battery 5 of the "Dimmock Line" stood only yards from the Jordon House.
When Union and Confederate armies swarmed over this area in 1864, dozens of farmers like Jordan were uprooted, their homes damaged or destroyed, their woodlots cut, and their fields ravaged. The landscape sill bears the scars.
PETEB1_130919_085.JPG: Battery 5 of the Dimmock Line
In 1862 – two years before the first Federals appeared at the city's gates – Confederate Captain Charles Dimmock oversaw the construction of a ten-mile line of defensive works ringing Petersburg. In front of you is Battery 5 one of the largest of the fifty-five artillery positions in the Dimmock Line.
Most of the works you see at Battery 5 were built by slaves. The parapet to your left, shown on the diagram to your right in blue, was added by the Federals after the battle here on June 15, 1864.
On June 15, 1864, more that 30,000 Union troops marched from the east toward the Dimmock Line. Only 2,300 Confederates stood between the Federals and Petersburg.
PETEB1_130919_108.JPG: Opportunity Lost
"At that hour, Petersburg was clearly at the mercy of the Federal commander, who had all but captured it."
-- Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, CSA Confederate Commander, June 15, 1864
"Deeming that I held important points of the enemy's line of works, I thought it prudent to make no farther advance."
-- Maj. Gen. William F. "Baldy" Smith, USA Union Commander, June 15, 1864
At 7 p.m. on June 15, 1864, the boom of Union cannons to the east foreshadowed a Union attack on the Dimmock Line. Minutes later, soldiers of the Union Eighteenth Corps broke through the undermanned Confederate line and swarmed over the works here at Battery 5. In two hours the Federal captured 1.5 miles of Petersburg's defenses.
Though few Confederates stood between the Federals and the streets of Petersburg, Union Maj. Gen. William F. Smith stopped his advance to await reinforcements. Nine months of tedious, deadly siege would pass before the Federals would again have such an opportunity to capture Petersburg.
PETEB1_130919_177.JPG: Dictator
Sept. 1864: "…the enemy frequently shoot very large shells into Petersburg & do some damage to buildings, but the people are getting used to it, so they don't mind them…."
-- A.I.P. Varin 2nd Mississippi
Famous but militarily ineffective, the "Dictator" fired on Petersburg from this spot during July, August, and September 1864.
The Dictator was a 13-inch seacoast mortar similar to the one in front of you. It was the largest gun used during the siege and could lob a 225-pound explosive shell more than two miles. During its service in the siege lines, the Dictator fired 218 rounds at Petersburg and its defenses.
PETEB1_130919_199.JPG: Powder Magazine:
Powder for the "Dictator" was stored here. It required 14 pounds of black powder to hurl the 225 pound 13-inch shell 2 miles into Petersburg. Each shell was filled with 11 pounds of powder and set to explode at tree height.
PETEB1_130919_232.JPG: Jordon Family Cemetery
Buried with his parents are Josiah Jordan, his wife, Mary and four of their children - Watson, 10 months, Laura, 3 years, Charles, 4 months, and Lemuel, 24 years.
This land was Josiah's farm at the time of the siege.
PETEB2_130919_025.JPG: Battery 8 of the Dimmock Line
On June 15, 1864, after seizing Battery 5, Union troops swept southward along the Dimmock Line. Men of the 1st and 22nd Colored Troops captured Battery 8, overcoming heavy resistance from part of Brig. Gen. Henry A. Wise's Virginia brigade. By the morning of June 16, the 1.5 miles of Confederate works between Batteries 3 and 11 were in Union hands.
After capturing this section of the Dimmock Line, the Federals incorporated parts of it, including Battery 8, into a second line of siege works. Battery 8 would see combat only one more time, when Union guns here helped repel the Confederate breakthrough at Fort Stedman in March 1865.
PETEB2_130919_048.JPG: "A Splendid Charge"
Here at Petersburg on June 15, 1864, African-American troops recorded their first major success of the war in Virginia.
"They made a splendid charge…and won great favor in the eyes of white soldiers by their courage and bravery."
-- Wilbur Fiske, 2nd Vermont Infantry June 19, 1864
After the capture of Battery 5, some of the 3,500 black troops swept southward, routing Confederates before them. At dusk, they charged on Battery 9 and swarmed over the works. During two hours of fighting on the Dimmock Line that evening, the U.S. Colored Troops (official designation) captured dozens of Confederates and six cannons.
PETEB2_130919_054.JPG: Meade Station Trail:
This 0.5-mile interpretive trail will lead you to three sites that reveal different aspects of the Siege of Petersburg. The path is of gravel, the walk is level and easy, the slopes not exceeding 5%. In dry weather, the trail is accessible to most wheelchair users.
PETEB2_130919_057.JPG: In memory of the valorous service of regiments and companies of the US Colored Troops, Army of the James, and Army of the Potomac, Siege of Petersburg, 1864-65
PETEB2_130919_061.JPG: Infantry Earthworks
"Attacking entrenchments has been tried so often and with such fearful losses that even the stupidest private now knows that it cannot succeed, and the natural consequence follows; the men will not try it. The very sight of a bank of earth brings them to a dead halt."
-- Col. Charles Wainwright, USA, June 18, 1864
Re-created here are samples of some of the infantry earthworks that ringed Petersburg – works that one man said made the landscape resemble "an immense prairie dog village."
As the siege wore on, assaults against entrenched positions became rare. Most of the pitched battles at Petersburg took place beyond the flanks of the armies, as the Federals inexorably pushed westward to cut the rail lines and roads into the city.
PETEB2_130919_110.JPG: Soldiers' Hut:
This hut is a model of the type used by Union soldiers here during the winter of 1864-65. Occupied by four men, thousands of these huts were built during the siege.
PETEB2_130919_125.JPG: Monotonous Toil
"The romance of a soldier's life disappears in a siege. The change of scenery and the lively marches are gone, and the same monotonous unvaried rounds of toil take their place. Sunday and weekday are all alike."
-- T.M. Blythe 50th N.Y. Engineers
This quiet wood was once a busy encampment. Here, during the winter of 1864-65, Union soldiers fought not Confederates, but boredom and toil. They drilled, they primped their huts, they read mail and newspapers, they played, and they waited – for their turn in the trenches (a dangerous assignment) or the call to battle.
That call to battle came only three times to the Pennsylvanians camped near here. On one of these – the morning of March 25, 1865 – they rushed from these camps to resist the Confederate breakthrough at Fort Stedman, one mile to the west (to your left).
PETEB2_130919_136.JPG: Prince George Court House Road
This trail follows the old road which ran between Petersburg and Prince George Court House. It was used by both armies to move men and supplies.
PETEB2_130919_146.JPG: The United States Military Railroad:
The thin rails of the United States Military Railroad brought men, sustenance, supplies, and ammunition from City Point to Union armies sprawled across 30 miles of war-torn Virginia. You are near the site of Meade Station, one of the road's major waysides.
Started in June 1864 and dismantled in 1865, the Military Railroad carried as many as fifteen trains loaded with a total of 1,400 tons of supplies each day. As the siege lines stretched westward, engineers extended the railroad until it totaled more than 22 miles of track.
The military railroad also gave the Federals the means to move men quickly at any point of the line. Here, Union troops unload at Warren Station during the Battle of Peebles' Farm, September 30, 1864.
"It run up hill and down dale, and its undulations were so marked that a train moving along it looked in the distance like a fly crawling over a corrugated washboard."
-- Lt. Col. Horace Porter, USA
Many of the stations along the railroad were named after Union generals. From Meade Station, the supplies were hauled by wagon along the Prince George Court House Road to the front, 1.5 miles away.
PETEB2_130919_192.JPG: Dividing Point
Twice during the Siege of Petersburg, Harrison's Creek became a dividing point between contending armies.
June 15, 1864 After being driven out of the Dimmock Line, the outnumbered Confederate defenders of Petersburg formed a new line on the heights across the stream from you. They held this position until June 17 - weathering repeated Union attacks - then pulled back safely to the line they would hold for the remainder of the siege, a half mile west of here.
March 25, 1865 Harrison's Creek also marks the farthest advance of Lee's last offensive.
After breaching the Union lines at Fort Stedman, Confederates under Brig. Gen. James A. Walker advanced to and beyond Harrison's Creek. Pennsylvanians of Brig. Gen. John Hartranft's Union division rushed from their camps to meet the attack. Volleys rolled across the fields here; soon the overmatched Confederates retreated to Fort Stedman and, eventually, to their own lines.
PETEB2_130919_203.JPG: Siege of Petersburg -- Lee Strikes Back:
March 25, 1865 Battle of Fort Stedman to Battle of Jones Farm
By March 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee had suffered through nearly nine months of fighting, had repulsed seven Union offenses, and had his men spread along a 37-mile-long front. Knowing that it was only a matter of time before his lines would break he took a desperate gamble and launched his only offensive of the siege.
You are standing where Lee had pinned his hopes for breaking the Union grip on his army.
Morning March 25, 1865 -- Lee launches a pre-dawn surprise assault on Union Fort Stedman hoping to break the Union grip on Petersburg. Within four hours, Lee's gamble had failed completely.
Afternoon March 25, 1865 -- Union forces strike where Lee weakened his line for launching the Fort Stedman attack. By nightfall Union forces gain valuable ground for their breakthrough assault on April 2, 1865.
PETEB2_130919_212.JPG: A Final Effort
Desperate to relieve the Union noose strangling Petersburg, on March 25, 1865, General Lee used pre-dawn darkness and stealth to pierce the Union Line here at Fort Stedman.
"We were very much elated at first, as we thought we had won a great victory."
-- Capt. R.D. Funkhouser, 4th Virginia
Though initially successful, the attack soon lost momentum. Union reinforcements arrived and counterattacked. The Confederates fell back over and into the Fort; hundreds were killed or captured.
Never again would Robert E. Lee launch a major offensive. A week later Petersburg would fall.
PETEB2_130919_225.JPG: Colquitt's Salient Trail
The Colquitt's Salient loop trail will lead you over ground involved with two of the most dramatic events of the Siege of Petersburg.
On the walk to Colquitt's Salient, you will shadow the advance of the 1st Maine Heavy Artillery during its tragic charge on June 18, 1864. On your return, you will be walking in the footsteps of the Confederates who attacked Fort Stedman on March 25, 1865. The trail is a half-mile long - -- about a twenty-minute walk.
The Colquitt's Salient Trail is paved with moderate slopes.
PETEB2_130919_231.JPG: Prince George Court House Road
This old road was used by both Confederate and Union Armies in the fighting around Petersburg.
PETEB2_130919_247.JPG: Hare House Site
About this house swirled the tide of battle on June 18, 1864, and during "Lee's Last Grand Offensive," March 25, 1865.
PETEB2_130919_273.JPG: Maine First Heavy Artillery
PETEB2_130919_285.JPG: Colquitt's Salient
On June 18, 1864, the Confederates on this hill repulsed the charge of the First Maine Regiment on March 25, 1865 from this salient General John B. Gordon led a body of picked men to surprise and capture Fort Steadman
PETEB2_130919_294.JPG: Wasted Valor
On the plain below you, the 1st Maine Heavy Artillery enacted one of the tragic dramas of the Civil War.
"The field became a burning, seething, crashing, hissing hell, in which human courage, flesh and bone were struggling with an impossibility.…"
-- Capt. Horace H. Shaw, 1st Maine Heavy Artillery
At 4:30 p.m. on June 18, 1864, this regiment of former garrison troops charged across this field toward the Confederate lines near Colquitt's Salient. As they moved, their supports -- veteran regiments who knew the folly of attacking entrenched positions -- huddled under cover, leaving the 1st Maine to attack alone. Confederate musketry and artillery devastated the regiment.
For the next ten minutes, the 1st Maine Heavy Artillery lost the equivalent of a man each second: 632 men killed and wounded (out of almost 900 engaged), more than any other regiment in any other single battle of the war. The Confederates, behind earthworks, lost just 25.
PETEB2_130919_329.JPG: Fort Stedman
In the last grand offensive movement of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, Fort Stedman, with adjacent works, was captured at 4:30 A.M., March 25, 1865, by a well selected body of Confederates, under the command of General John B. Gordon.
An advance was made with great determination, over the broken Union lines, then through the ravine, and up the rising ground to the eastward, for the purpose of cutting the U.S. Military R.R. and thus make successful the Confederate plan of severing the Army of the Potomac and destroying its base of supplies at City Point.
This movement was checked and the direct assault in the recapture of these embattlements, was made by the Third Division Ninth Corps Army of the Potomac, in whose memory this tablet is erected by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
PETEB2_130919_348.JPG: Fort Stedman
It is quite interesting to see a fort going up. The men work in the manner of bees. The mass throw the earth; the engineer soldiers do the ‘rivetting,' that is, the interior facing the logs. The engineer sergeants run about with tapes and stakes, measuring busily; and the engineer officers look as wise as possible and superintend.
-- Col. Theodore Lyman, USA
With up to six cannons and 300 infantrymen as garrison, Fort Stedman was typical of the more than 30 forts that studded the Union siege lines. Its main distinguishing characteristic: the Confederate line lay only 300 yards away.
PETEB2_130919_358.JPG: Earthworks:
The earthen mounds around you are part of the original Civil War defenses used in 1864-65. Please help the National Park Service preserve them by not walking on them.
PETEB2_130919_377.JPG: Defending Fort Haskell
Daylight on March 25, 1865, brought furious fighting to Fort Haskell.
"Our thin line mounted the banquette – the wounded and sick loading the muskets, while those with sound hands stood to the parapets and blazed away."
-- George L. Kilmer, 14th N.Y. Heavy Artillery
Dazed Union survivors of the attack at Fort Stedman jammed into Haskell, where Southern artillery and the captured guns at Fort Stedman bombarded them. Union artillery to the south, thinking Fort Haskell had fallen, opened fire too. Then, soon after daylight, a Confederate division moved out of Fort Stedman and attacked Haskell through the ravine in front of you.
Union Infantrymen and three cannons along this parapet of Fort Haskell raked the Confederate lines. Only a few Confederates made it out of the ravine, and few of those who did survived.
PETEB2_130919_385.JPG: Siege of Petersburg -- Grant's Third Offensive:
July 30, 1864 Battle of the Crater:
Standing here behind Union lines in July 1864, you would have seen the result of Union General Ulysses S. Grant's attempt to break the Confederate hold on Petersburg. Grant's plan was to lure Confederate General Robert E. Lee's forces to Richmond and then to strike at Petersburg's weakened defenses.
July 28, 1864 -- Union forces attack Confederate defenses of Richmond at Deep Bottom forcing Lee to send reinforcements from Petersburg.
July 30, 1864 -- Grant's plan worked and only 18,000 Confederate soldiers were in Petersburg when the Battle of the Crater exploded.
PETEB2_130919_395.JPG: Prelude to the Crater
"The mine is all finished, the powder in, the fuse all ready. I hope that the attack will be successful, for if it is, we shall have Petersburg in our possession."
-- Col. Stephen M. Weld, 50th Massachusetts July 28, 1864
The predawn darkness of July 30, 1864, shrouded intense Union preparations on this ridge. Thousands of troops filed quietly into the ravine and trenches in front. More than 160 cannon crowded the earthworks to your right and left. Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, commander of the attacking force, took his place in the 14-gun battery (Fort Morton) behind you. By 3:30 a.m. all was ready. Only one detail remained: the explosion of the mine.
PETEB2_130919_472.JPG: Went into action July 30, 1864, 780 men -- answered roll call. After battle 288 men lost, killed and wounded, 484 men including 3 officers.
PETEB2_130919_484.JPG: Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Crater, July 30, 1864
Erected by the citizens of Petersburg
July 30, 1964
PETEB2_130919_497.JPG: Mahone
To the memory of William Mahone Major General C.S.A. A distinguished Confederate commander, whose valor and strategy at the Battle of the Crater, July 30, 1864 won for himself and his gallant brigade undying fame. A citizen of Petersburg, Virginia, born Dec. 1, 1826, died Oct. 6, 1895.
PETEB2_130919_504.JPG: This stone marks approximately the right of Mahone's brigade Virginia Volunteers when it re-captured the Confederate breast works on the 30th of July 1864.
PETEB2_130919_515.JPG: Confederate Counterattack
"I counted 21 Union flags flying from the Crater and these works. The sight gave me no hope of ever getting away alive."
-- Capt. James E. Phillips, 12th Virginia Infantry
Union disorganization gave the Confederates the time they needed to respond to the crisis at the Crater. At 9 a.m., Confederate Brig. Gen. William Mahone's division rushed to the depression about 200 yards to your right. Just as the Federals were forming to renew the attack, Mahone's leading brigade charged.
In a wild melee against great odds, the 800 Virginians recaptured the trenches here, just north of the Crater. Later, other Confederates attacked the Crater itself. By mid-afternoon the Crater and its surrounding works were again in Confederate hands.
PETEB2_130919_542.JPG: On this hill for one month South Carolina troops guarded the entrance to Petersburg and here July 30, 1864. Suffered death from a mine exploded by the Federals. Here the surviving Carolinians under the command of Stephen Elliott by their valor turned a dreadful disaster into a glorious victory.
PETEB2_130919_567.JPG: Confederate Countermine
Suspecting a Union mine, the Confederates dug two listening galleries here. They narrowly missed striking the Union tunnel, which was deeper. The depressions you see were caused by the cave-in of these galleries.
PETEB2_130919_604.JPG: "A Stupendous Failure"
"It is agreed that the thing was a perfect success, except that it did not succeed."
-- Major Charles F. Adams, Jr., USA
The explosion cleared the Union path to Petersburg. But instead of pushing through, the first waves of Union attackers simply stood at the Crater, gawking at the incredible scene.
Union hesitation allowed the Confederates to regroup. Southern batteries fired from right and left; the Federals crowded into the Crater for protection. A thin line of Confederate survivors formed in the depression beyond the Crater. Though the Federals seized 150 yards of works on each side of the Crater, they advanced no farther. Dazed, confused, and leaderless, for hours they huddled in and around "the horrid pit." Meanwhile, Confederate reinforcements prepared to counterattack.
The 15,000 Union attackers – including 4,300 African-American troops – never reached their immediate objective, the heights of Cemetery Hill (upper right). Through the Confederates' morning counterattacks forced the Federals back into the Crater, it took four more hours to drive the Federals away altogether. General Grant called the episode "a stupendous failure."
PETEB2_130919_611.JPG: The Crater
"There was utmost consternation. Some men scampered out of the lines; some, paralyzed with fear, vaguely scratched at the counterscarp as if trying to escape. Smoke and dust filled the air."
-- Col. William McMaster, 17th South Carolina Infantry
At 4:40 a.m. on July 30, 1864, the men of Captain Richard Pegram's battery and two South Carolina regiments lay sleeping here at Elliot's Salient. A moment later, this place turned into a smoking hole 170 feet long, 80 feet wide, and 30 feet deep. Two hundred and seventy-eight Confederates died in the blast. Two 1,700-pound cannons were hurled completely out of the works.
The depressions of four of the magazines (rooms that held the powder) exploded by Colonel Pleasants's men are still visible inside the Crater.
PETEB2_130919_618.JPG: Since the 1860s the Crater has been a popular spot for tourists.
This photo was taken in 1867. Note the skull at the bottom of the picture.
PETEB2_130919_648.JPG: Ventilation Shaft
"Regular Army wiseacres said it was not feasible – that I could not carry the ventilation that distance without digging a hole to the surface… But I have succeeded."
-- Lt. Col. Henry Pleasants, 48th Pennsylvania July 23, 1864
The most serious problem that faced Lt. Col. Pleasants was getting fresh air to the men working in the tunnel. He came up with a solution commonly used in the Pennsylvania coal mines.
One hundred feet into the mine, Pleasants's men dug a vertical ventilation shaft – the remains of which are in front of you. They then placed an airtight canvas door across the mine opening and ran a wooden duct the length of the mine to the forward end of the chamber. The fire that burned continuously at the ventilation shaft drew stale air out of the mine; fresh air was drawn through the duct to the men working at the head of the tunnel.
The air-tight partition (1) ensured that the fire (2) would draw air from the interior of the tunnel (3), thus drawing the stale air away from the workers. Fresh air drawn through the wooden duct (4) replaced the stale drawn out of the mine by the fire at the ventilation shaft.
Once beneath the Confederate works, the Federals dug lateral magazines, which they packed with 8,000 pound of gunpowder.
PETEB2_130919_652.JPG: Once beneath the Confederate works, the Federals dug lateral magazines, which they packed with 8,000 pound of gunpowder.
PETEB2_130919_656.JPG: The air-tight partition (1) ensured that the fire (2) would draw air from the interior of the tunnel (3), thus drawing the stale air away from the workers. Fresh air drawn through the wooden duct (4) replaced the stale drawn out of the mine by the fire at the ventilation shaft.
PETEB2_130919_703.JPG: Digging the Mine
"We could blow that damn fort out of existence if we could run a mine shaft under it."
-- A private of the 48th Pennsylvania June 23, 1864
Spurred by the offhand suggestion of a former coal miner, on June 25, 1864, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pleasants put his 48th Pennsylvania to digging. Their objective: to tunnel under the Confederate line and low up the battery at Elliott's Salient.
Beginning on June 25, 1864, and continuing for the next month, these Pennsylvania coal miners burrowed a shaft 511 feet into this hillside. Then they packed four tons of powder into the magazines under the Confederate battery. At 3:15 a.m. on July 30, Pleasants lit the fuse and scrambled out of the tunnel.
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Wikipedia Description: Siege of Petersburg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Richmond-Petersburg Campaign was a series of battles around Petersburg, Virginia, fought from June 15, 1864, to March 25, 1865, during the American Civil War. Although it is more popularly known as the Siege of Petersburg, it was not a classic military siege, in which a city is usually fully surrounded and all supply lines are cut off. It was ten months of trench warfare in which Union forces commanded by Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant assaulted Petersburg unsuccessfully and then constructed trench lines that eventually extended over 30 miles around the eastern and southern outskirts of the city. Petersburg was crucial to the supply of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's army and the Confederate capital of Richmond.
Lee finally yielded to the overwhelming pressure—the point at which supply lines were finally cut and a true siege would have begun—and abandoned both cities in April 1865, leading to his retreat and surrender in the Appomattox Campaign. The Siege of Petersburg foreshadowed the trench warfare that would be common in World War I, earning it a prominent position in military history. It also featured the largest concentration of African American troops employed in the war, who suffered heavy casualties at such engagements as the Battle of the Crater and Chaffin's Farm.
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.)
I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com
and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (VA -- Petersburg Natl Battlefield) directly related to this one:
[Display ALL photos on one page]:
2013 photos: Equipment this year: I mostly used my Fuji XS-1 camera but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000 and Nikon D600.
Trips this year:
three Civil War Trust conferences (Memphis, TN, Jackson, MS [to which I added a week to to visit sites in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee], and Richmond, VA), and
my 8th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including sites in Nevada and California).
Ego Strokes: Aviva Kempner used my photo of her as her author photo in Larry Ruttman's "American Jews & America's Game: Voices of a Growing Legacy in Baseball" book.
Number of photos taken this year: just over 570,000.
Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
Limiting Text: You can turn off all of this text by clicking this link:
[Thumbnails Only]