An Archaeological Overview and Assessment of the
Main Unit, Petersburg National Battlefield, Virginia

Chapter Five:  A Summary of Historic Sites and Earthworks (Part E)

Western Area Earthworks and Sites

Griffith house site: The William Griffith house was indicated on the 1863 Campbell map (Figure 4.4) at the junction of the Sussex and Jerusalem Plank roads, currently the tour road exit onto Crater Avenue.  The 1 acre property had been owned by Lydia Fells, a free African-American resident, but land tax records suggest that the house may have been built in 1857 by Timothy Rives, who sold the lot to Griffith in 1861.  Land tax records suggest that the house was destroyed during the siege, which is hardly surprising given its location immediately to the rear of the Confederate defense line.  The 1867 Michler map (Figure 5.9) shows a structure labeled "Chiswell" at the approximate location of the Griffith house.

Sussex Road trace: The historic Sussex Road ran in an easterly direction from a junction with the Jerusalem Plank Road (modern Crater Road) south of the town of Blandford.  The Sussex Road entered the Main Unit and crossed the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad between Union Batteries XV and XVI.  The roadbed is visible between the park tour road and park boundary immediately west of the railroad.  The park tour road uses a portion of the Sussex Road bed from the Crater loop to the park exit at Crater Road.

Confederate siege line: The Confederate main line of entrenchments crossed the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad as it extended southward from Gracie's Salient.  Since a portion of the western boundary of the Main Unit runs along the railroad, this advance line of Confederate trenches passes beyond the boundary of the Main Unit.  A section of this entrenchment survives on a spur of the 100 foot plateau overlooking the west side of Poor Creek (Plate 5.32).  This portion of the works lies near the site of the Bowman house seen on the 1863 Campbell map (Figure 4.4).  This line of entrenchments also runs up the south slope of a ravine west of Poor Creek to the top of the 100 foot plateau, reentering the NPS Main Unit in the process (Plate 5.33).  These eroded works are found in the woods north of the Crater.

The section of the works near the Bowman house site appears to have been dug in discontinuous units.  These apparent discontinuous units may reflect the dwindling numbers of Confederate troops in the winter of 1865 and the consequent desire to protect the line of works with a series of flank traverses to prevent the entire length of the line from becoming indefensible in case a section of the works was captured by Union troops.

Confederate Elliott's Salient or the Crater: The third major Confederate artillery concentration within the Main Unit was Elliott's Salient, located west of the Taylor site and Fort Morton (Plate 5.34).  The position was obliterated in the explosion of an underground Union mine on July 30, 1864, resulting in the famous landmark known as the Crater.  A new line of defensive works was prepared to the rear of the Crater, and an advance picket line extended across the front, approximately 100 yards from the advance picket line of Union forces (Plate 5.35).  The Michler map (Figure 5.9) indicates the extent of Confederate works west of the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad.  Much of the land in the western area of the Main Unit is open field and all surface traces of the earthworks in these fields have disappeared as a result of plowing or other activities.  The area around the Crater was a golf course in the early twentieth century.  As mentioned above, an eroded line of earthworks survives in the wooded area north of the Crater.

The Crater survives today as a heavily eroded and much smaller remnant of the original gaping hole.  The underground mine tunnel leading to the Crater was enlarged in the early twentieth century to allow visitors to walk through the tunnel, but is currently closed.  Sections of the tunnel collapse periodically, and various portions of the mine tunnel have been explored archaeologically (Griffin and Wilson 1962; Wilson 1976).

A test trench was excavated behind the Confederate picket line in August 1978 by Brooke Blades and Mark Ohno for the National Park Service (Blades 1981).  Excavations revealed various features related to the occupation of the Confederate troops from General Bushrod Johnson's division including a hearth pit with three separate hearth levels of burned coal (Plate 5.36) and a drainage ditch in the center of the depression behind the earthworks.  The excavations also exposed cast iron blast pipes that served to simulate the Crater explosion during a 1930s reenactment.