The Petersburg Project
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    • Alfred R. Waud, Special Artist at Petersburg >
      • In Front of Petersburg
      • Waud Drawing of 5th Corps Fortifications
      • Rives Salient ("Fort Mahone")
      • Soldiers' Wells
      • The Mine Explosion
    • William Waud, Special Artist
    • Charles H. Chapin, Special Artist
    • Edwin Forbes, Special Artist at Petersburg
    • Joseph Becker, Special Artist at Petersburg
    • Edward Mullen, Special Artist at Petersburg
    • Andrew W. Warren, Special Artist
    • Winslow Homer, Special Artist
    • Enlisted Artists >
      • Charles Wellington Reed
      • Andrew McCallum
      • Francis Knowles
      • James William Pattison
      • Herbert Valentine
  • Petersburg Photographs --So Many!
    • Working with Photographs
    • Steeples of Petersburg
    • Petersburg Panorama 1865
    • City Point
    • City Point Wharf Explosion, Aug. 9, 1864
    • Fort Rice?? We don't think so!
    • Federal Picket Line, Jerusalem Plank Road
    • Timothy O'Sullivan, Photographer at Petersburg >
      • O'Sullivan and Vest Man
      • Fort Morton and Baxter Road Group
      • Fort Haskell Panorama
      • Fort Stedman Group
      • Gracie's Salient Group
      • Bombproofs behind Fort Haskell
      • Camp of the 50th N. Y. Engineers
    • John Reekie, Photographer for the Quartermaster Corps
    • Thomas C. Roche, Photographer at Petersburg
    • David Knox, Photographer at Petersburg
    • Andrew J. Russell, Photographer at Petersburg >
      • "Fort Mahone" CS Batteries 25 & 27
  • U. S. Military Railroad
    • Terminus of Military R. R. at City Point
    • City Point to Clark's Station
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    • Parke's Station
    • Warren's Station
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  • Maps and Topogs
    • Grand Medicine Pow-wow
    • Michler's Reports from Topographical Department
    • John E. Weyss, Cartographer
    • William H. Paine, Cartographer
    • Gilbert Thompson
  • Confederate Maps
    • Confederate Defenses 1862
    • Gilmer-Campbell Maps, 1864
    • Stevens Map July 1864
    • Fields of Fire
    • Coit's map of the Crater Battlefield
  • Federal Maps
    • June 18, 1864-Federal Engineers Map
    • June 21, 1864, Federal Engineers Map
    • June 22, 1864. Second Corps at Jerusalem Plank Road
    • June 30, 1864 -- XVIII Corps Map
    • Undated Federal Engineers Map--June-July, 1864
    • July 1864 Map of XVIII Corps Lines
    • 18th Corps, June 18, 1864
    • Native American Perspective of the Crater
    • August 28, 1864, Michler Map
    • IX Corps, Peebles and Pegrams Farms Oct. 1864
    • Army of the Potomac, Nov. 2, 1864
    • 1864, Coast Survey Map of Petersburg
    • Army of the Potomac, Routes of the Corps to Petersburg
    • Manuscript Survey, 1865
    • Michler-Weyss, Siege of Petersburg
    • Michler Map Series 1865-1867
    • 1871, Map of Recapture of Ft. Stedman
    • 1881, Boydton Plank Road
  • Confederate Forts and Batteries
    • Dimmock Line >
      • Priest Cap
      • French Rifle Pits
    • Fort Clifton
    • Confederate Leadworks
  • Federal Forts and Batteries
    • Battery X
    • Fort Alexander Hayes
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    • Fort Davis & Battery XXII
    • Fort Fisher
    • Fort Meikel --Photographic Views
    • Fort Morton
    • Fort Patrick Kelly
    • Fort Sedgwick, better known as Fort Hell,
    • Fort Wadsworth -- the Evolution
    • Fort Willcox or Battery XVI
    • Hare House Hill
  • Battlefield Features
    • Aiken House
    • Avery House
    • Bailey/Johnston Farm
    • Blandford Church
    • Broadway Landing, Appomattox River
    • The Crater
    • Cummings House
    • Dams and Inundations
    • Dunn House
    • Friend House >
      • View from Friend House toward Gibben complex and Petersburg
    • Globe Tavern / Weldon Railroad
    • Gregory House
    • Griffith Farm
    • Gurley House
    • Hare House
    • The "Horseshoe"
    • Jones House
    • Jordan House
    • Pegram's Farm
    • Peebles Farm, Pegrams Farm, Poplar Springs Church
    • Shand House
    • Taylor Farm >
      • The Ice House
      • Surviving Taylor Barn
    • U. S. Engineers at the Williams House
    • Williams House
  • Signal Towers and Trees
    • Some Operations of the Signal Corps at Petersburg
  • Archeology
    • Geology of the Crater
    • Fieldwork -- Petersburg
    • Civil War Sinks
    • Deserted Confederate Camp
    • Gracie's Countermine
    • LIDAR Forts and Batteries
  • Articles, Papers, Presentations
    • Shiman: A Note on Maps
    • The Siege Landscape: Through Fire and Ice at Petersburg
    • "The Rebel in the Road"
    • "A Strange Sort of Warfare Underground"
    • Lost Trenches of Petersburg: June 17
    • Between the Lines
    • Combat Trenching: An Introduction
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      • June 30, 1864, Attack
      • Combat Entrenching
      • Trench Warfare in Civil War History
      • Chamberlain at Petersburg, June 18, 1864
  • Kittens, Puppies & Ponies
  • Executions!
  • Civil War Combat Trenching
  • Pontoon Bridges
  • Depot Hospital at City Point
  • New: Shot tower

Confederate States Leadworks

The C.S.A. Leadworks at Petersburg were constructed by Josiah Gorgas, head of the Ordnance Bureau, in summer 1862 in order to provide a vital material for small arms and artillery ammunition.  Gorgas, a West Point graduate from  Pennsylvania, used his pre-war experiences at U.S. arsenals to develop this new smelting capacity for the South.

The works were located near the Weldon Rail Road and Halifax Road southwest of the city.  Lead ore was transported to Petersburg via rail and lead ingots sent to Richmond,also via rail (Henderson 1998: 56; Greene 2006: 87-88). 

During the siege,  Confederate troops were urged to collect expended ammunition, which was collected and presumably sent to the leadworks to be recycled, as in the example below: 
                                                                                                                          HEADQUARTERS JOHNSON'S DIVISION,
​                                                                                                                                                                        July 19. 1864.
​...General Gracie's brigade collected 1,000 shells and solid shot yesterday, together with 350 or 400 pounds of lead; the other commands were also engaged in the same manner but have not yet forwarded detailed reports.... (OR XL, Part I, 782).

Petersburg in the Civil War, William D. Henderson, H.E. Howard, Lynchburg, VA., 1998.  Civil War Petersburg, A. Wilson Greene, University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, VA, 2006.
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The lead works were outside of the original Dimmock Line as shown on the 1863 Gilmer map above (the original map was not oriented north-this has been  corrected).  By the end of the war, the important industrial facility was protected by strong works . ​Detail from Confederate "Map of the Approaches to Petersburg and their Defenses," Gilmer, 1863. [Official Atlas, plate 40:1]

PictureNARA, College Park, Michler Sheet 11. By 1864-65 the lead works were protected by an exterior line of fortifications that ran from Battery 38 to Fort Lee. The new line encompassed the Fisher house "Breezy Hill."
Letter of Charles Wellington Reed to his sister:
Qtrs. 5th Army Corps
Hatchers Run near Petersburg, Va
March 8th, 1865
Dear Sister Em,
…I accompanied one of the boys of the Signal Station a short time ago and climbing the tree was amply repaid for my pains by a glorious view of the enemy’s line and country southwest of Petersburg.  I took a sketch of a portion of their works taking in their famous lead works, with the aid of a powerful telescope which brought the objects out as plain as if I were standing within fifty yards of them….(p. 308).
​

Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library as published in "A Grand Terrible Dramma": From Gettysburg to Petersburg: The Civil War Letof Charles Wellington Reed, edited by Eric Campbell, Fordham University Press, 2000.

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Detail from Charles Wellington Reed drawing, captioned, "Lead Works South West of Petersburg, inside reb lines". Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
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USAHEC Mass. MOLLUS collection, vol. 6, no. 292. Labeled "Fort Sedgwick." "Lead Works" added as an annotation above the chimneys on the horizon.
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Detail of photograph taken from the Peebles Farm Signal Tower, spring 1865, with buildings and stacks of the C.S.A. Leadworks in the distance. Library of Congress, cw04090.

Map Error

Gilmer-Campbell Maps, 1864
​
It was the middle of a war and you would think it was important to know the location of a government facility that supplied the war effort; however, the series of four versions of a map of the "Vicinity of Petersburg" from the Chief Engineers Office, Department of Northern Virginia, prepared in 1864, place the leadworks about a half mile east of its actual location.
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Detail, retrieved from the Library of Congress .
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