"The Mine"
Barnard's Sketch of the Crater --National Archives
J. G. Barnard. "Sketch of the Mine in Front of the 2d Div. 9 Corps near Petersburg, VA" [NARA RG 77: Dr. 150-58 Entry 2.245]
Detail from Barnard's "Sketch of the Mine," above.
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Detail from Barnard's "Sketch of the Mine," above.
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Detail from Barnard's "Sketch of the Mine," above.
Charles Wellington Reed's depiction of the Federal mine. Library of Congress, Manuscript division, Reed papers.
July 30th, 1864. Artists' Depictions of The Crater.
"Before Petersburg at Sunrise, July 30th 1864," sketched by Alfred R. Waud, LC Waud, no. 727 B size (22452).
"Scene of the explosion Saturday July 30th," sketched by Alfred R. Waud, LC Waud, no. 156 A size (20996).
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"Mine Explosion, July 30th, 1864," sketch by Charles Wellington Reed, LC Reed Papers, image photographed by Philip Shiman. Reed drew from the perspective of the 5th Corps front.
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Becker Collection 22484 detail. "Siege of Petersburg -- Charge into the Crater." Andrew McCallum, artist.
Sketch by Joseph Becker, published in the American Magazine, vol. 37 (1894): 749.
"Burying the Dead Before "Cemetery Hill Under a Flag of Truce After the Repulse of the Ninth Army Corps," woodcut after a sketch by E. F. Mullen, Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, September 3, 1864.
"After the repulse on the 30th, Gen. Burnside sent a flag of truce to ask leave to remove our wounded and bury our dead. On the 1st of August a reply was given and working parties, white and colored, sent out. Our Artist sketches the terrible scene. The bodies, after lying in a midsummer sun for two days were terribly altered; swarms of flies gathered around those remains of the gallant fellows who fell. The rebel works swarmed with men, and in front was a line of guards. In the intervening space, between this and our line, the men were busily at work, committing to earth the remains of their comrades. Near the guards our officers met rebel officers at the flag. Among the latter were Gen. Cooper and Gen. Mahone, among the former Gen. Ferrero. Our dead amounted to 300 in all, less than had been supposed. The time given for the truce was from five A.M. to nine, after which hostilities commenced, but in reality only random musketry firing was heard." -- Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, September 3, 1864.
"Those bodies that were recognized and could be lifted on to stretchers without falling to pieces, were carried into our lines and buried. Pits were dug twentv or thirty feet long and about four feet deep for the rest. The poor fellows were then rolled, and in some cases, shovelled onto the stretchers, and dumped or laid in the holes, one on top the other, until within a foot of the top, and then covered with loose earth. In course of time these bodies decayed. Subsequent storms washed the loose covering of earth down through, and for months after, until the end of the war, long rows of bleaching skeletons marked this field of awful slaughter."--Forty-six months with the Fourth R. I. volunteers, in the war of 1861 to 1865 Corp. Geo. H. Allen, of Company B. 1887, 293.
New York Public Library . The Confederates reestablished their line after the explosion.
Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper published this view from the Crater on August 19, 1865, a year after the mine explosion and four months after the end of the war.
Postwar Photographs of the Crater
"Fortifications on the Petersburg lines," a view of the Crater taken at the end of the war [LOT 4166-E, no. 29]. Photographer unidentified.
"Interior of the Crater," postwar photograph (c. 1870), photographer unknown, collections of the USAMHI.
"No. 878. Crater, Petersburg, VA," postwar photograph, photographer unknown, New York Public Library. Note the encroaching vegetation.
The Crater, circa 1870. NPS files.
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The Crater, circa 1870. NPS files. The rebuilt Taylor farm can be seen in the distance. Note the rampant erosion in the foreground.
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The Crater, circa 1870. NPS files. Notice the skulls, stairs, and terraced seating for tour groups.
LC 56346. "Civil War veterans of the 57th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment with Confederate General William Mahone at the crater caused by Union soldiers exploding a mine at Petersburg, Virginia," photograph by W. H. Tipton, 1887
LC 56185. "The Crater," photograph by Frederick H. Foss, May 1887. View looks east toward the Taylor Farm.
A More Modern Comparison ....
Kokura, Japan, 1890s. Practice mine in clayey ground. This is how the Petersburg crater may have appeared just after the explosion of July 30, 1864. Barton and Doyle, Beneath Flanders Fields (2007), pg. 38.
