Our Civil War Tour was winding down but we still had a few
important sites to visit and Petersburg was high on that list. Before our trip
when I thought about the Civil War--which wasn't often--I'd think about what
happened during the fighting or troop movements. I didn't stop to think about
what it required to keep an army of men fed, clothed and supplied. As Napoleon
famously said "An army marches on its stomach." So what happens when
an army lays siege to a city like Grant's Union Army did at Petersburg?
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| The cabin Grant lived in at City Point |
We found out when we visited City Point--now called
Hopewell--on the outskirts of Petersburg. During the nine-month siege the Union
Army basically created a major city by
building a 200-acre hospital with 10,000 beds, a half-mile long dock on
the river that received 140,000 tons of supplies each day, and a bakery that
baked 100,000 loaves of bread daily. The logistics for managing the supplies
and weapons--not to mention the 65,000 horses!-- was mind boggling but the
Union Army had it covered. Grant himself chose not to stay in the plantation house
at City Point during the siege, staying instead in a small log cabin. (Impress
your friends with your knowledge by mentioning that Abraham Lincoln spent two
of the last three weeks of his life at City Point.)
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| On the grounds at City Point |
After we left City Point we drove to the Eastern Front of the Petersburg siege where we
saw the Dictator, a 13" mortar so large--over 17,000 pounds--that it had to be mounted on a rail
car and moved from City Point. (Don't ask me the difference between a mortar
and a cannon--they look the same to me.) We also saw trenches that the Confederates
dug that were so well executed they were used years later to teach trench building to troops
headed for Europe during WWI.
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| Standing next to the Dictator |
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| Tunnel entrance to plant explosives for the Crater |
During our trip to the Petersburg area we stood at the
infamous Crater, where Union soldiers, mostly miners from Pennsylvania, dug a
570' tunnel to blow up a Confederate fortification on a hilltop. The feat is even more
amazing considering that the soldiers didn't have shovels or mining equipment and
were forced to find work-arounds to get the job done. The explosion worked but
tragically the depression itself became a trap as anyone in it was a target for
marksmen on its rim after the blast.
As we drove away from the Crater we stopped to visit one of the most
beautiful memorials from the Civil War--the Blandford Church. After living in
Seattle we've seen some amazing glasswork but we marveled at the Tiffany
windows in the Church--one for each Southern state. The windows were designed
by Tiffany himself using a quote chosen
by the state specifically for their window. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to
take any photos inside the Church so you'll have to take our word for how
beautiful it was. Or better yet, go see it for yourself.
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| Tudor Hall Plantation House |
What the heck is Pamplin? That name kept cropping up as a
must-see Civil War site in the Western Front at Petersburg but it wasn't one of
the National Park Service parks. We debated whether it would be worth the
stop--I'm happy that we decided to give it a shot. Pamplin turned out to be a complex
that included several museums, a plantation and slave quarters, excellent
examples of fortifications, and living history demonstrations. We spent a
delightful and informative hour with a living history "farmer" who
told us all about plantation life. Tudor Hall Plantation house, built in 1815,
at Pamplin was no Tara from Gone With the
Wind but our guide explained to us that in the 1860s only the "1
per-centers" had the stereotypical huge multi-column mansions. Most
plantations were about 200 acres and were much more modest. He gave us a lively
talk about the slave experience, farming practices, and the specific history of
the family at that plantation.
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| Russ by a reproduction of Civil War fortifications at Pamplin |
The Union paid a heavy price in casualties but the battles
of the Overland Campaign led to the siege at Petersburg and the fall of
Petersburg led to the fall of Richmond. Grant then had what he needed to force
Robert E. Lee's final retreat towards the west, where instead of joining Confederate
General Johnston's army in Tennessee Lee,
surrounded by Grant's forces, made his fateful decision to surrender at
Appomattox.
More Photos from around Petersburg:
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| In the doorway of the laundry building at Tudor Hall Plantation | | | | |
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| Tobacco Barn at Pamplin |
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| "Modern" rotisserie circa 1860 in the kitchen at Tudor Plantation |
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| Marker on street corner in Petersburg |
