Petersburg National Battlefield, Virginia

Map Chronology

The Wood or Boye map has been discussed previously, and, in any case, provided no details of the Five Forks area beyond roads and creeks.  A series of detailed maps were produced from 1864 to 1880, arising primarily from the April 1865 battle at Five Forks and the court of inquiry into the conduct of Union General Gouverneur K. Warren during the battle.

The Confederate Engineer Bureau surveyed Dinwiddie County and A. H. Campbell produced a map in 1864 (Campbell 1864) for military purposes with an emphasis upon the quality of roads, railroads, bridges, and fords (Figure 4.3).  The Campbell map also depicted a large number of residences with the names of occupants.  The farms of "B. Boisseau" and "R. Sydnor" were shown north of White Oak Road.  The Gilliam residence was shown but not named.  A general indication of cleared fields and woods was provided and the three roads that intersect at Five Forks were shown: White Oak, Ford's, and Scott's.  A structure labelled "B.O." was noted between Scott's and Ford's Roads and may indicate a blacksmith's shop that was mentioned in contemporary accounts of the battle at Five Forks.

The Gillespie map of July 1865 (Gillespie 1865) was probably the earliest map of the battlefield at Five Forks, and as such placed an emphasis upon troop positions (Figure 4.4).  This map was published in the Official Records Atlas (Plate LXVIII, no. 3) to accompany the official report of General Philip Sheridan.  The map provided greater detail of the Five Forks vicinity.  One structure was indicated on the farm of "C. Young" (B. Boisseau on the Campbell map); a T-shaped house and two outbuildings were depicted on the farm of "Louis Sidney"; the farm of "Mrs. Gilliam" was noted by a T-shaped house and four outbuildings with several other clusters of outbuildings at greater distances.  A few farm roads were also shown, as were the outlines of fields.  A rectangular field enclosed the Young house; a large field extended north from White Oak Road to the Sydnor house; fields lay north and south of the Gilliam home.  No field was indicated north of the Five Forks junction.  The farm of "Jas. Boisseau" lay southeast of the Gilliam property.

The Michler map of 1867 (Michler 1867) was exceptionally detailed, with good information on field boundaries and particularly on the architectural layouts surrounding plantation dwellings (Figure 4.5).  The area north of Five Forks junction was depicted as wooded.  Numerous structures were shown as end chimney structures, which was probably an artistic symbol for dwelling.  The map also provided detailed information on earthworks.  Traverses (but no redoubt) were indicated at the eastern end of the Confederate line along White Oak Road.  Additional works and rifle pits lay further to the east.  Union earthworks stood south of the forks.

During preparations for the court of inquiry, Gouverneur K. Warren and his former aide-de-camp E. B. Cope visited Five Forks in December 1879 to conduct mapping surveys.  The manuscript Cope maps are preserved in the Warren Papers at the New York State Library in Albany (Cope 1880) and depict the lands north of White Oak Road in considerable detail.  The "Boisseau" property had an entrance lane extending westward from "Ford or Church Road" (Figure 4.6). The dwelling had an ell or extension on the north end.  Four outbuildings stood to the west or behind the dwelling, three others lay south of the entrance lane.  The dwelling and associated buildings stood in the midst of a cleared field east of and above a tributary stream of Hatcher's Run.

The property of "R. Sidney" was depicted on the Cope map as a dwelling surrounded by three outbuildings near the junction of farm roads on a spur above two tributary streams (Figure 4.7).  A separate structure marked "Chimney" lay to the southwest at the location of a separate outbuilding shown on the Michler map.  All subsequent references to the "Chimney" or "Chimneys" were associated with structure ruins to the northeast on the opposite side of a tributary stream.  The Five Forks junction was also drawn, as well as a farm road both north and south of White Oak Road (Figure 4.8).  Small clearings were indicated north of White Oak Road on the east and west sides of Church Road.

A map of the Five Forks battlefield, published in the Official Records Atlas (O.R. Atlas 1895:Plate LXVI, no. 9), was endorsed by Warren and may have been derived from his surveys with Cope (Cope and Warren n.d.) as well as the maps of others. The map illustrated troop movements but in addition identified house sites in the area, including "B. Boisseau," "Sidney," "The Chimneys," and "J. Gilliam."

Additional map surveys were being conducted simultaneously with those of Warren and Cope.  However, the maps produced by these surveys at times displayed interesting differences.  Surveys undertaken by Cotton in late 1879 and early 1880 formed the basis of a series of Cotton maps.  Cotton no. 1 (Cotton 1880) utilized data on topographic contours and forest boundaries northwest of Five Forks recorded by Maxson in March and April of 1880 (Figure 4.9).

The first Cotton map generally provided little information concerning farm buildings.  However, the Gilliam property was shown in considerable detail, including an orchard north of the dwelling and various fence configurations: zig-zag (horizontal or worm? fences) along farm field roads, dashed lines (post and rail fences?) near the house (Figure 4.10).  The rectangular Gilliam dwelling had a porch on the front (south) side and an ell to the rear.  Three outbuildings were standing to the west; five outbuildings lay to the south along a farm road.  An "Old Tannery" was located across a creek to the west, as were four other outbuildings.  A "Tobacco Barn" stood along a farm road to the northwest.

A clearing was shown northwest of the Five Forks.  This road junction was depicted as a complex intersection of alternate routes for Scott's, White Oak, and Church Roads.  These alternative routes probably reflect the need for different paths along unpaved roads, particularly during the winter or in wet weather.

The Cotton map no. 2 (Cotton n.d.) was published with the proceedings of the official court of inquiry into the conduct of General Warren during the Battle of Five Forks (Figure 4.11).  This map represented a simplified version of Cotton no. 1, with topographic lines replaced by elevations.  Boundaries between fields and woods were indicated as well as slopes and vegetation along drainages.  The line of the Confederate earthworks was shown clearly.  The western end of the works (V) in Gilliam's field was noted as the location of "Old graves."  The structure along the western farm road on the Gilliam property (N) was noted as a "Tobacco barn."  A structure (F) standing northeast of the forks was labelled "Shanty" and was noted as having been built after the battle.  Other house sites were noted: "Boisseau's or C. Young's" (E), "Sidney or Sydnor" (G), and "Chimney" (H) lying northeast of Sydnor.

Another map was printed by Von Arx (Von Arx n.d.) and published as Plate I with the court of inquiry proceedings (Figure 4.12).  Additional details of the Sydnor fields were provided, including a "spring" to the southeast and "Chimneys" to the northeast.  Farm roads, drainages, and an unlabelled post-Civil War house to the west of Sydnor (the "Shanty" on Cotton no. 2) were also shown.  The eastern end of the Confederate trenches or "Return" was reenforced by an artillery redoubt to the rear.

The Maxson map was produced in April 1880 (Maxson 1880) and focussed upon the area northwest of Five Forks (Figure 4.13).  The former Boisseau/Young farm was now labelled "Nunnelly."  A farm associated with "Betts" stood on the north side of White Oak Road and north of the Gilliam property.  A small field was located northwest of Five Forks; multiple intersecting roads were indicated at the forks but these details may have been copied from the Cotton surveys.

Auerbach produced a composite map in December 1880 (Auerbach 1880) at the request of the court of inquiry. The map was compiled from the surveys and maps previously conducted and generated by Michler, Maxson, and Cotton (Figure 4.14).

The Landscape 1865-1880: Vegetation

The battle of Five Forks and the Warren court of inquiry have generated a very detailed graphic and narrative record of the nature and distribution of agricultural fields and woods in the vicinity of Five Forks.  The maps have been previously discussed and most have been reproduced within this study.  The narrative accounts consist of official reports and army histories by participants in the battle and testimonies by civilian residents and former soldiers recorded during the court of inquiry.  Many of these data were compiled in the three volumes that reported the findings and recommendations of the court of inquiry (Warren Inquiry 1883).  These various sources were reviewed and analyzed in a superb study by Chris Calkins (1990) that constitutes the definitive interpretation of many of the physical landscape elements--vegetation, roads, drainages, topography--at the time of the April 1865 battle.

Calkins created a gridded map consisting of five rows north-south (A-E) and five columns east-west (1-5), which resulted in 25 grid squares.  He then studied all of the available documentation, including survey notes and manuscript notations in the Warren Papers in the New York State Library, to determine the type of 1865 groundcover present within each grid square.  When conflicts were encountered, the most frequently-encountered description was utilized in the interpretation of vegetation.  Calkins also used these sources and twentieth-century aerial photographs to rediscover the traces of farm roads and forest tracts.  These data have been utilized by the park to generate a geographic information system (GIS) map (Calkins and Easterbrook 1995) that contrasts 1865 and modern (1995) vegetation patterns (Figure 4.15).

The agricultural fields surrounding the B. Boisseau/ C. Young house were described as 30 to 40 acres planted in corn or tobacco.  The woods to the south were composed of oak and pines near the small field northwest of the forks.  A cultivated field of 10 to 15 acres lay east of Church Road, at the approximate location of the 35 acres purchased by John Sydnor in 1838 from the Gilliams.  Cedars and pines stood between this field and White Oak Road to the south.

A white oak forest separated the 10-15 acre field from the larger one (c.50 acres) around the Sydnor house to the east.  The "Chimneys" to the northeast were surrounded by an abandoned field with small second-growth pines; larger pines (from an older abandoned field?) were found to the north.  A portion of the Sydnor field extended south to and slightly across the White Oak Road.  However, the "Return" or "Angle" that marked the eastern end of the Confederate earthworks was placed in a mixed woods of oaks and pines.  The fields surrounding the house of Thomas Bass were located immediately east of the current park boundary.

The portion of the park southeast of Five Forks (i.e., between White Oak and Scott's Roads) was wooded at the time of the battle.  A small log blacksmith's shop apparently stood at the forks and was dismantled by Confederate troops during construction of their earthworks (C. Calkins, personal communication, 1998).  The area to the southwest of the forks fell within the Gilliam plantation, where two large cultivated fields were bounded by farm roads and woods.  The eastern field, which surrounded the Gilliam house and orchard, was planted in cotton at the northern end adjacent to White Oak Road.  The tobacco barn stood along a farm road in the woods between the fields; the portion of the woods along White Oak Road was composed of pines, probably indicating the location of a formerly cleared area.  The western field was simply described as cultivated in contemporary accounts.  It should be noted that most of the area south of White Oak Road and west of Scott's Road is not owned by the Park Service but lies within an easement granted by the descendants of the Gilliam family at "Burnt Quarter."

The Physical Landscape, 1859-1869

We return to the decade that encapsuled the Civil War to examine data that permit a broader physical context to be defined for the Five Forks vicinity.  Perspectives will be drawn from the 1859-69 land taxes, the 1860 Federal Census, and the 1867 Michler map.  The geographic areas under consideration range from the Five Forks vicinity to the northern district of Dinwiddie County to the entire county.

The Michler map of 1867 recorded the layout of farm buildings in precise detail (Figure 4.16).  These data may be combined with the outline of open fields also shown on the map to reconstruct in general terms the physical landscape as a series of farm dwellings with varying numbers of associated outbuildings surrounded by agricultural fields.  A French visitor to Virginia as early as 1687 commented upon the nature of rural estates extending along the Tidewater rivers:

Whatever their rank, and I know not why, they build only two rooms with some closets on the ground floor, and two rooms in the attic; but they build several like this, according to their means.  They build also a separate kitchen, a separate house for the Christian slaves, one for the negro slaves, and several to dry the tobacco, so that when you come to the home of a person of some means, you think you are entering a fairly large village (Chinard 1934:119-120, cited in Billings 1975:306)

Had the same Frenchman visited mid-nineteenth century Dinwiddie County, he would undoubtedly have noticed changes in architectural technology but the overall settlement pattern of dispersed farmsteads would have seemed very familiar.

Each farm was generally visually isolated from neighboring ones by woods.  The psychological isolation that most likely emerged with the visual isolation probably did more to reenforce the rural nature of the landscape than the limited number of towns in Virginia or the agricultural basis of the economy.  Distances between farm dwellings obviously varied depending upon the acreage within neighboring plantations.  The dwelling occupied by Drury Grant prior to his death lay only 1140 feet from an unnamed farm on the 1867 Michler map (the Dabney property on the Campbell map).  The Gilliam dwelling at "Burnt Quarter" was surrounded by one of the largest plantations in the county and consequently lay more than a mile northwest of the (James) Boisseau house.  Most farm dwellings stood between 2000 and 4000 feet from their nearest neighbors (Table 4.6).

Numerous minor dirt roads provided access to the farm dwelling complexes from the major routes such as White Oak and Church or Court House Roads.  The Gilliam farm and other large estates had several roads running along fields to connect various portions of the plantations.  The outline of these roads and the fences that enclosed fields on the Gilliam farm were depicted in particular detail on the first Cotton map discussed above (see Figures 4.9 and 4.10).

The architectural environment was documented in particular detail on the Michler map.  (The first Cotton map provided additional details of the Gilliam farm while the Cope map focused upon the Benjamin Boisseau and Sydnor farms.)  The use on the Michler map of an end chimney structure as the symbol presumably for dwellings on various farms (Gilliam, P. Scott, Sydnor, and J. Moody) probably reflected the visual dominance of that architectural form on the Virginia landscape.  The surviving Gilliam house of "Burnt Quarter" is in fact a two-story end chimney structure with a hipped roof and wings to the side and rear.

Varying numbers of outbuildings surrounded the dwellings; the compass orientations of these structures relative to the main dwelling are provided in Table 4.6.  Plantations of varying size would have possessed a number of support buildings in the immediate vicinity of the house: kitchen (often combined with quarters for household slaves), smokehouse, and dairy.  Structures such as livestock barns would have been found at somewhat greater distances.  An isolated structure west of the Gilliam house was identified as a tobacco barn on later maps, and suggests that isolated structures on other farms (Sydnor, James Boisseau, and T. Barnes or Bass) may have also been tobacco barns.  Since these agricultural plantations were dependant upon slave labor, structures to house field slaves were required; the 1860 Federal Census indicated the following numbers of slave houses on farms in the Five Forks vicinity: Gilliam (8), Benjamin Boisseau (4), Harmon (none), Sydnor (2), James Boisseau (3), Thomas Bass (2).  The larger plantations often hired overseers or managers to coordinate daily agricultural tasks; the 1850 Census indicated that Miles Lewis served as overseer on the Gilliam farm (Bradley 1991:81).  A house would also be required for the overseer's family and the separate dwelling northwest of the Gilliam house may have served that purpose.

The distribution of these outbuildings across the landscape was variable.  Most of the farms possessed a cluster of structures on one or more sides of the dwelling.  Some, such as the Gilliam and Scott farms, had a row of buildings that were probably slave quarters standing some distance from the main complex of structures.  The plan of the Gilliam farm buildings was the most complex one due to a larger quantity of slaves to be housed and a greater scale of agricultural activities.

The acreage of farms and the value of buildings on those farms as recorded in the annual land taxes varied widely (Table 4.7).

The Gilliam farm dominated not only the area but represented one of the largest estates in the county.  The modest farms of Caroline Roberts, probably a free black resident, and Drury Grant reflected the opposite end of the size scale.  The remaining farms ranged between 100 and 600 acres with buildings valued between $100 and $500.

It is possible to place the farm environments surrounding Five Forks in broader perspectives by examining data from the remainder of Dinwiddie County.  The 1859 land tax for Dinwiddie County was recorded within two districts: B. J. Hill in the northwest and T. Farley in the southeast.  The Five Forks vicinity lay within the northwest district.

A total of 636 tracts (537 owners or freeholders) was recorded within the northern district, compared with 585 tracts (516 owners) in the southeast (Figures 4.17 and 4.18).  The distribution of land tract sizes was very similar in each portion of the county: the modal class was 0-49 acres and the median tract fell within the 100-149 acres range.  A Kolmogorov-Smirnov two-sample test indicated a statistically random relationship between the two districts (D =.029, p >.05).

The distribution of building values, however, suggested differences.  Tracts with buildings numbered 418 in the northwest district and 351 in the southeast (Figures 4.19 and 4.20).  The modal class in each district was $100-$199.  The median in the northwest district fell between $200 and $299, while the median in the southeast was higher, between $500 and $599 in value.  A Kolmogorov-Smirnov two-sample test suggested a statistically-significant difference (D =.219, p <.01).  A higher median value in the southeast district may reflect its geographical proximity to Petersburg.

Comparisons of the farms in the Five Forks vicinity with these data reveal that land tracts tended to be somewhat larger than in the remainder of the northwest district.  The Roberts and Grant farms fell below the median size value and the Barnes farm was near the median size (100-149 acres).  The farms owned by the Youngs, Scott, Benjamin Boisseau, James Boisseau, and John Sydnor were all larger than the median size.  The Gilliam estate was virtually off the scale, being the third largest estate in the entire county.  Building values were somewhat more comparable with the rest of the northwest district.  The Roberts, Grant, Barnes, and Sydnor structures were all below the median value, while the buildings on the farm owned by the Youngs fell near the median value between $200 and $299.  The farms of Benjamin Boisseau, James Boisseau, and Scott had structures valued above the median.  Once again, the Gilliam structures at "Burnt Quarter" were well above the median, falling within the top five percent in terms of value for the district.

The Agricultural Landscape, 1860

The agricultural schedule of the 1860 Federal Census provides us with a foundation for reconstructing the economic basis that sustained life in Dinwiddie County.  We will specifically focus upon the northern district in the county, the area in which Five Forks was located.

Selected agricultural categories for farms in the vicinity of Five Forks are presented in Table 4.8.

Most of these farms may be found on the portions of the 1864 Campbell and 1867 Michler maps that are reproduced in this report.  A total of 346 individuals was recorded in the agricultural schedule for the northern district in 1860; 309 of these owned lands while the remaining 37 were tenants or farm managers who had agricultural production on leased acreage.  A limited number of free blacks occupied farms, including some in the Five Forks vicinity.

The listing within Table 4.8 reflects the original order in the schedule, although the list is not continuous after Wallace, Driver, Barnes, and Archer Williams.  A wide range of farm sizes was reflected in the schedule.  Wallace may have been a tenant on the Gilliam farm; J. M. Williams owned 290 acres in the vicinity; he and Joseph Gilliam later purchased the 200 acre Young tract and then sold the land to Perkinson.  B. Boisseau, Scott, J. Boisseau, and Bass were all landowners in the Five Forks area.

The residence of Harmon or "Haman" lay northeast of the Sydnor house in 1867; the schedule indicated that he was a tenant, probably on lands owned by Sydnor.  (Harmon purchased 206 acres from Sydnor's estate in 1870, possibly the same lands he had leased.)  L. R. Sydnor was also listed as a tenant in 1860.  John Sydnor had died by 1863 and in 1865 taxes on the Sydnor tract were paid by R. L. Sydnor, William Sydnor, and Harmon.  R. Sydnor or "Sidney" was noted as the owner/occupant of the Sydnor house on the 1864 Campbell map and on several post-Civil War maps.  Two free black residents owned small farms in the vicinity: John Roberts (89 acres) and Robert Amprey (33 acres).  The farm of "A. Roberts" lay east of the Harmon farm on the 1867 Michler map, and may indicate the property of John Roberts in 1860 and Caroline Roberts on the 1863 land tax.  No Amprey property was indicated on the maps examined for this study.

Two considerations arise from these data.  The distribution of agricultural production was undoubtedly affected by tenancy.  John Sydnor was credited with 614 acres in 1860 but the agricultural production of tenants John Harmon and Robert Sydnor was probably derived from a substantial portion of that acreage.  In addition, both tenants and small farmers such as Amprey were at times "invisible" to cartographers.  In a number of instances, however, maps did depict structures with no associated names and the Campbell map did note "F.N." (free negro?) for one structure north of Hatcher's Run.

The Driver and Dabney farms lay east of Five Forks on the Campbell map.  A farm unnamed by Campbell was labelled "D. Grant" by Michler; Drury Grant appeared on the 1859 and 1863 land taxes but not the 1860 agricultural schedule.  The farms of two free blacks, Becky Amprey (90 acres) and Thomas Walker (3.3 acres), do not appear on maps but probably lay near the Driver property.  The Lewis, Archer Williams, and Moody farms appeared on the Campbell or Michler maps south of Gravelly Run.

The median for the total acreage, including both improved and unimproved lands, was 300 acres, which exceeded the median size (100-149 acres) indicated in the 1859 land tax.  A majority of the farms below 200 acres in size (59 of 106, or 56 percent) had more than 50 percent of the land improved, while the most common proportion for larger farms was between 25 and 49 percent improved acreage.  The unimproved lands would consist of woodlots, wet ground, and overgrown abandoned fields.  The need for agricultural intensification was evidently greater on smaller farms.

Three principal crops were grown within Dinwiddie County in 1860: corn, wheat, and tobacco.  Oats were also raised but total yields rarely if ever exceeded those for wheat.  A Plantation and farm instruction... guide for farm managers described four field and five field rotations of crops (anon. 1852:12).  The five field rotation was evaluated as follows:

This is perhaps the best rotation of crops for high land of ordinary fertility (i.e., much of Dinwiddie County).  The tobacco and corn are cultivated in part of the same field each year, and the tobacco lot highly manured.  The thinner parts of the corn land is next year sowed in oats and the balance of the corn and the tobacco land in wheat.

Regardless of the rotation cycle, a given field was to be cultivated in tobacco and corn only once in four or five years.  During the remaining years that field would be planted in wheat, oats or clover, and clover (four field rotation) or oats and wheat, clover, wheat, and clover (five field rotation).  These suggestions indicate that both tobacco and corn would readily exhaust the production capacity of a farm's soils and that wheat was a less demanding crop.  Further, oats and clover served primarily as fallow crops.  If these advanced or scientific principles were being followed in Dinwiddie County, we would expect to wheat being harvested more frequently than corn since only one-fourth or one-fifth of a farm's productive capacity would be devoted to the cultivation of corn or wheat.

The principles advocated in the farm managers' guide do not seem to have been widely applied, at least on the smaller farms.  Every farm in the northern district and all but two of the tenants/managers raised corn in 1860.  By contrast, 78 percent of the farms and tenants (268 of 344) raised wheat.  Furthermore, only five percent (13 of 268) raised more corn than wheat as measured by bushels produced.  Whether a given acre would yield more corn than wheat and therefore affect the perception of relative cultivation is another matter.  Farms of less than 200 total acres often raised no wheat (39 percent of 105) and placed less emphasis upon wheat production than did the larger farms.  Proportions of wheat to corn were greater than 30 percent on twice as many larger farms (39 percent of 202) compared with those of less than 200 acres (18 percent of 105).  The larger farms had greater balance in production.  Among the 13 farms with more than 5000 acres, which included the Gilliam plantation, nine had corn proportions in excess of 30 percent and one exceeded 50 percent.

Corn was raised primarily for livestock consumption and wheat was produced presumably for bread flour.  Tobacco represented the principal cash crop and was raised nearly as frequently as corn.  A total of 326 entries on the agricultural schedule, including 36 of 37 landless tenants/managers, produced tobacco in 1860.  Once again, intensification of production was apparent on the smaller farms.  None of the farms with more than 200 improved acres produced more than 99 pounds of tobacco per improved acre.  By contrast, 16 percent (17 of 110) of the farms with less than 100 improved acres produced more than 99 pounds of tobacco per acre of improved land.  Among farms with less than 50 improved acres, three produced more than 600 pounds of tobacco per acre of improved land.

Milk cows were credited to 320 farms and tenants; the quantities of such cattle generally reflected the size of the farm.  A total of 297 farms and tenants had butter production; a Student's t comparison between the quantity of milk cattle and pounds of butter produced suggested the obvious direct relationship (r =.681, p <.01).

The Social Landscape of Slavery

Many of the smaller farms and all of the large ones in Dinwiddie County depended upon the labor of African-American slaves.  The slave population outnumbered the white residents in both districts in the 1850 Federal Census: northern district, 2417 whites, 289 free blacks, 3118 slaves; southern district, 1870 whites, 421 free blacks, 3033 slaves (Bradley 1991:88,128).

The distribution of slaves by age for various farms in the Five Forks vicinity was derived from the 1860 Federal Census and is presented in Table 4.9.

Population sizes varied widely, from two female slaves owned by the tenant Harmon to the Gilliam plantation with 15 male and 26 female slaves, in addition to a number that had been hired out to other plantations.  If the slave population is divided by the number of slave houses on each farm, the quantity of occupants for each house ranges from two on the Scott plantation to eight on the Sydnor farm.

Approximately one-half of the individuals recorded in the 1860 personal property tax did not possess slaves: 53 percent (385 of 731 farms) in the northwest district and 50 percent (287 of 569 farms) in the southeast district.  The 1860 personal property tax indicated that in both districts the modal class of farms contained one adult slave (i.e., a man or woman older than 11 years of age.)  The median value was four adult slaves (Figure 4.21).  However, the "median" adult slave lived on a plantation containing 11 adult slaves (Figure 4.22).  Therefore, the common slaveholder experience related to a small population of between one and five adult slaves, while the common slave experience occurred within the confines of a large slave population.

The Landscape 1880-1990: Structures and Vegetation

The Coleman/ Goodwyn/ Gilliam dwelling of "Burnt Quarter" survives, but the house on the Boisseau/ C. Young farm, the Sydnor house, and the chimney ruins are no longer standing.  Indeed, the latter had disappeared by the time the Church Road and Sutherland quad maps were surveyed in 1963 (USGS 1974, 1981).  The dwelling built between 1865 and 1880 still stands east of Church Road.  Others dwellings and structures have appeared: a late nineteenth-early twentieth century dwelling and tobacco barn south of the forks and a c.1950 store north of the forks that the Park Service uses as a visitor reception center.  The Church Road quad (USGS 1981) indicated that two structures were located west of the forks, but neither remains standing.  White Oak Road is currently Route 613, Church Road is Route 627, and Scott's Road is Route 645.

The Five Forks portion of Petersburg National Battlefield was established in August 1962.  The proposed boundaries as mapped in 1973 (DSC 1973) indicated that Joseph P. Gilliam owned all the lands surrounding Five Forks, including the original "Burnt Quarter" tract, the Boisseau/ C. Young lands west of Church Road, lands south of White Oak Road, and much of the original Sydnor tract east of Church Road.  The park as conceived in the early 1970s would encompass the 1396 acres owned by Gilliam, a tract of 91 acres owned by Continental Can Company that encompassed the eastern Sydnor lands and the "Chimneys" site, and additional acreage eastward to Route 628 and southward to Route 627 leading to the court house.

A boundary change was proposed in November 1978 and by January 1990 (MARO 1990) a very different park had emerged.  A tract of 931 acres was purchased from Gilliam.  Most of the land southeast of Five Forks remained in possession of the Gilliam family; an easement for 438 acres was granted to the National Park Service.  A narrow strip of land south of White Oak Road was included in the purchase tract since it contained the remains of the western portion of the Confederate earthworks.  The former "Chimneys" site and surrounding 185 acres were purchased from the Bear Island Timberlands Company.  None of the lands adjacent to Route 628 were acquired.