Civil War history

I’m in Richmond and spent all day Sunday with Richard, a friend I used to work with.  We are both history buffs and he took me to some Civil War sites.

Our first stop was the Petersburg battlefield.  This was the site of a 10 month siege of Petersburg by union troops.  We were able to tour some of the old fort earth works and see some period cannon. 

The battle of Petersburg included the famous Crater Battle where union forces hoping to punch a whole in the confederate defenses dug a 511 foot tunnel under a fort.  They then put 4 tons of powder in the fort and blew it up.  It was a great success in that the fort ceased to exist and over 200 confederate soldiers were killed.  Union soldiers ran up to continue the attack but ended up being shocked by the carnage and never pressed the advantage.  This gave the confederates time to mount a counter attack and they regained the fort/crater.

The union won the battle in April 1965 and headed North to Richmond.  This was just before Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House.

We then returned to Richmond and toured the Museum of the Confederacy next to the Confederate White House.  Pretty cool stuff that documents the timeline of the war.  There are a lot of personal items of Lee as well as models of the various naval ships and maps of engagments.

Side note - There were a lot of the officer coats on display.  Those must have been some small guys as there is no way a average sized person of today could squeeze their shoulders into them.

By this time things were closing so we took a quick walk around Belle island to finish our day.  Most of the island is just a park with trails but there are some markers showing where the prison was as well as the gravesite for the union priosoners.

It was a great day exlporing Civil War stuff.  My first time being on an actual battlefield.

Thanks Richard!

This entry was posted on January 15, 2007 at 9:22 pm and is filed under Errata, Activities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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