Weekends are great as a seed courier.
For one thing, I don’t have to schlepp all my stuff in and out every day. If you are smart, you book for three nights – Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Or you do what I did, and forget about Sunday night. No bother! I got to visit another place that I had on The List on Sunday.
Permit me to digress from Petersburg for a moment and discuss lodging. Those of you who travel and stay in moderately priced hotels may be familiar with the concept of a “Hospitality Promise” that comes with toiletries and a threat.
For goodness sake! Their “guest room amenities” can’t possibly be that popular!
By this time, I was getting pretty familiar with the complimentary breakfast bar. This time, I got to see something I hadn’t seen in years.
A woman out in public with curlers in her hair. Perhaps she had some special event, like a wedding or some such thing, where she was going to get fixed up once she got there.
It’s fun to look at the people you see along the way and make up backstories for them.
The reason I had been looking forward to visiting Petersburg is that it is the site of was a major battle in the Civil War. When I was younger, I could have told you a lot about it. At this point, however, all I could remember were the words “siege” and “crater.”
Petersburg has been on “The List” forever. I’ve been close several times, but just couldn’t work a visit in. Today was the day!
Upon my arrival, I learned that Petersburg was the longest battle of the Civil War, lasting 9 months and 18 days. I happened to arrive on June 17, on the 144th anniversary of the beginning of the battle, and there were people on hand to help explain the battle. I arrived just in time to join a tour with a ranger.
After talking to us for a bit about the scope of what happened here, including a total of about 70,000 casualties, he guided us to a spot where some reenactors were waiting to talk with us.
They had camp set up. Can you believe that this is a tent? Well, I am sure you can believe that it is a tent, it’s just tents have certainly progressed a lot through the years.
Since this was a nine-month siege, there must have been a lot of “hurry up and wait” time. I imagine that whittling, like this guy is doing, was a major source of entertainment.
Our reenactors told us about the problem of shoes wearing out and what they would do to try to make them last longer. I had never seen real hobnail boots before.
They even demonstrated what went into firing their rifles. I can’t even imagine firing and reloading with people an equal distance away firing and reloading at me. Yet, somehow they managed to do it.
By the end of the war, this is how John Haley of the 17th Maine Infantry described the battlefield:
It’s hard to reconcile the peaceful countryside with what must have been a Hell hole.
Somewhere is this photo is something that is described as a “gentle depression.” It is the only vestige remaining of the Josiah Jordan House. It was dismantled by Union troops in 1862. It was only yards from Battery 5 of the Dimmock Line that was built to defend Petersburg.
Our next stop on the tour was Battery 5.
As you can see, these batteries were not luxurious affairs. It looks like they started with the dirt. They dug ditches, piled up walls and then augmented the ditches and mounds with timbers they cut from the forests nearby.
Until late summer of 1862, Petersburg was an unfortified city, which is surprising to me in that it was in an important transportation hub. It was decided to encircle the town with a series of partially enclosed forts connected by trench lines. The project was overseen by Captain Charles Dimmock, although it was laid out by others, and came to be known as “The Dimmock Line.”
The finished line consisted of 55 numbered batteries. Over four thousand troops from three brigades helped with the initial construction, and as many as one thousand conscripted slaves from Virginia and North Carolina also worked on the line.
The defenses weren’t perfect, but the Union Army was breathing down their necks. They had already crossed the Appomattox River, so they used what they had and did what they could. Once the Army of the Potomac withdrew to northern Virginia, work slowed down on the construction of the line. Dimmock kept working on the line. As late as March 1863, Dimmock was still conscripting slaves and free blacks to work on the defenses.
The next stop on our ranger-lead tour was Harrison’s Creek.
This small stream played a large roll in the battle. Ranger Rowland told us that the summers here were particularly hot and dry, so the stream was an important source of water for the troops.
In June, 1864, the outnumbered Confederate defenders of Petersburg formed a new line on the heights just across the stream.
You probably can’t tell from this photo, but the “heights” were not all that high. The Confederates scrambled to the top of the rise and started digging in to augment the small advantage the rise gave them. Bear in mind that this was not a forest at the time. It was just bare ground.
The Confederates held their position for two days, weathering repeated Union attacks.
Our Ranger did a great job of describing the fighting. After the demonstration of what went into firing a rifle, and knowing that the soldiers advancing on this little rise had to fight up hill with no cover, I felt particularly somber. This quiet little patch of ground was the site of much death.
The horses coming down the trail helped to relieve the melancholy.
Harrison’s Creek also marks the farthest advance on General Lee’s last offensive on March 25, 1865.
After this stop we were on our own. My next stop was Fort Stedman.
There is not much left to see of the fort, although I suppose the area is rich in archeological evidence.
There are descriptive signs along the trail through the site. I took a photo of this one to show off the solar-powered multimedia efforts.
There are still the “old-fashioned” forms of information, though.
This plaque that was erected by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
There were the usual displays with quotes from observers and participants.
There were photos, too.
Union engineers decided to leave Stedman’s trees standing, which was an uncommon luxury for the troops stationed here. With up to six cannons and 300 infantrymen, Fort Stedman was typical of the more than 30 forts that studded the Union siege lines. What set it apart from other similar forts was that the Confederate line lay only 300 yards away.
The dirt and logs gave shelter against Confederate shells and bullets. According to the display, life the fort was described as;
“Endurance without relief; sleeplessness without exhilaration; inactivity without rest; and constant apprehension requiring ceaseless watching.”
When I saw this photo in the display, it occurred to me that this might be an early selfie.
By the time I finished my tour of Fort Stedman, I was starting to get hungry. I went into town for sustenance and decided to save the Crater for after lunch. I will save my info about my visit to the city of Petersburg for another post.
So, the last thing I had on my list of things to see was the Crater itself.
I parked and walked along the trail. The scenery surely is more beautiful now that it was in 1864.
Lt. Col. Henry Pleasants, a mining engineer from Pennsylvania, proposed digging a long shaft under the Confederate lines and planting explosives directly under a fort know as Elliot’s Salient. His superiors – Burnside, Grant and Meade – saw this as a way to keep the men occupied, and eventually lost interest in the project. This left Pleasants scrounging for materials to complete the mines.
They came up with an ingenious way to provide ventilation as the men worked. This is from my Preferred Source:
“The miners had constructed a vertical exhaust shaft located well behind Union lines. At the vertical shaft’s base, a fire was kept continuously burning. A wooden duct ran the entire length of the tunnel and protruded into the outside air. The fire heated stale air inside of the tunnel, drawing it up the exhaust shaft and out of the mine by the chimney effect. The resulting vacuum then sucked fresh air in from the mine entrance via the wooden duct, which carried it down the length of the tunnel to the place in which the miners were working.[5] That avoided the need for additional ventilation shafts, which could have been observed by the enemy, and it also easily disguised the diggers’ progress.”
Work continued, in spite of the lack of materials. Earth was removed by hand and packed into improvised sledges made from cracker boxes fitted with handles.
To avoid a problem with moisture from the ground, the mine rose in elevation as it got closer to Elliot’s Salient.
At the end, the tunnel branched into two lateral magazines. The Union soldiers filled the mine with 320 kegs of gunpowder, totaling 8,000 pounds. The explosives were approximately 20 feet under the Confederate works, and the T-gap was packed shut with 11 feet of earth in the side galleries. A further 32 feet of packed earth in the main gallery to prevent the explosion blasting out the mouth of the mine. On July 28, the powder charges were armed.
The plan was to detonate the charges between 3:30 and 3:45am on the morning of July 30. Since Pleasants had been given substandard materials all the way through, it should be no surprise that they had also been given poor quality fuse, which the men had to splice together. The fuse kept burning out.
Time was passing and dawn was not far off. This would create a threat to the men at the staging points, who were in view of the Confederate lines.
After more and more time passed and no explosion occurred (the impending dawn creating a threat to the men at the staging points, who were in view of the Confederate lines), two volunteers from the 48th Regiment (Lt. Jacob Douty and Sgt. Harry Reese) crawled into the tunnel. After discovering the fuse had burned out at a splice, they spliced on a length of new fuse and relit it. Finally, at 4:44 a.m., the charges exploded in a massive shower of earth, men, and guns. A crater was created that was 170 feet long, 100 to 120 feet wide, and at least 30 feet deep.
The ensuing battle was horrific. I would encourage those of you interested in more details to click on the video below or check out my Preferred Source.
I continued walking along the path and came across this plaque.
Apparently, the Confederates thought something might be up. They dug some tunnels of their own to see if they could hear anything.
A little further along, I came to the marker for The Crater.
It looks quite lovely today, but I’m sure it took years for it to recover.
Speaking of nature reclaiming the land, in this section, they are working on trying to “restore” part of the battlefield to the way it was on June 30, 1864.
There was a counterattack that took place on the site in the photo.
This little berm is the remnant of Confederate breastworks. I had to look the word up. I was curious to see if it meant what I thought it meant. Breastworks are temporary fortifications, typically made of earth, that reach up to a man’s breast to allow defenders to fire over it from a standing position.
In this war, a shovel appears to be as important a weapon as a firearm.
This memorial is to honor General Mahone, who lead the counterattack.
I wonder if the fact that this battle was in his hometown had any additional impact on him.
I always look to see if I can find any additional information on memorials, such as the date it was made or dedicated, who sponsored it, or who made it. Burns and Campbell were the craftsmen.
These are somber statistics. 780 men answered roll call on July 30, 1864. After the battle, just 288 men remained.
In front of the breastwork, there is a memorial commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Crater. This was erected by the citizens of Petersburg.
If you visit, look for the picket lines cut into the grass. The Union and Confederate soldiers were incredibly close to each other. I don’t have a photo that does the proximity justice.
With that, it was time to head on to other things.
Close to the exit was this memorial to Massachusetts. When I saw it, I realized that there were very few pieces sponsored by states, unlike in Gettysburg.
I wonder why that is.
But, that is a question for another day.