C.S.A. Countermines Have Been Found
PETERSBURG, Va. — A recently rediscovered “amazing aspect that had slipped from memory and remained undisturbed for 150 years,” has staff at Petersburg National Battlefield excited. The rediscovery is an extensive set of Confederate countermines placed in front of the portion of the final Confederate line (the Harris line) known as Gracie’s Salient. The salient, which was named for Confederate Gen. Archibald Gracie, was near Union Forts Stedman and Haskell. Cultural Resource Manager Julia L. Steele says, “Its very existence rewrites a small portion of the history of the early days of the siege, when in July 1864 Union 18th Corps engineers drove a sap uphill from Poor Creek ‘to gain a better position for sharpshooters’ according to the Official Records.” The park hopes to use ground penetrating radar to assess whether there is Union mining under the salient and if any of the Confederate countermines remain intact. Steele explains that countermines were dug to try and intercept enemy mining efforts by discovering and destroying or neutralizing the mine. References to “mines” might be news to Civil War enthusiasts who know Petersburg for one famous mine, underground explosion and battle — the Crater — and don’t know there were additional mines. Steele says Confederates had countermines at six locations “where the lay of the land and the proximity of the lines made them worry about Union siege mining efforts.” Three of these locations were in what is now the park — the Crater, Gracie’s Salient and in front of Colquitt’s Salient. Last year the park did a detailed assessment of Gracie’s Salient for its inventory and condition assessment program. Steele says they worked from a detailed Union engineers’ map referred to as “Draft Michler” or “Manuscript Michler.” Nathaniel Michler was a Corps of Engineers officer. He was brevetted colonel for his service during the Petersburg siege and brigadier general for his Civil War service in April 1865. The Michler map Steele refers to showed the Confederate fortifications just after the city fell in early April 1865. It concentrated on the Confederate fortifications from the Appomattox River south to the Baxter Road. “The park was as curious as the Federals were about the Confederate works,” Steele says. Park staff could align most of the map features with what remains on the ground in a deeply wooded and difficult to reach portion of the park. “But there were a few lines of depressions that we noted had not been mapped,” she says. The nearby U.S. Army installation at Fort Lee provided LiDAR remote sensing technology images of the area. LiDAR can capture ground contours through the tree cover. The detailed Michler map indicates Confederate lines over the entire spur of high ground within the bend of Poor Creek. Steele says, “It also shows faint, penciled lines that match exactly the surface indications of collapsed underground tunnels.” She credits NPS Cultural Resource historian and geographic information systems specialist David Lowe and independent history researcher Dr. Philip Shiman with making the connection. The two have been fascinated by Petersburg for years: Lowe after researching battles for the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission and mapping forts in the park and Shiman after working as a seasonal employee at the park for six summers while a student. On one of their trips to explore the siege lines a few years ago it all jelled, Steele says. She went out with them and likewise became convinced they were seeing collapsed tunnels. Lowe and Shiman are members of the Civil War Fortifications Study Group which meets at a site every year to examine Civil War earthworks. The men tested their theory of the undocumented tunnels during the group’s February visit to Petersburg. “They were fairly certain, but the area is so densely wooded today, it’s difficult to get the full picture,” says Steele. The fortifications study group members agreed that the lines of depressions were Confederate countermines. “It was good to have their verification because it seemed so unbelievable that this major part of the Petersburg story had remained hidden all these years,” says Steele. She, Lowe and Shiman “scoured the documentary records and began to piece the picture together.” Their rigorous review of documentation included Union and Confederate maps from early in the siege. “They seem to show a Union picket line on the west side of Poor Creek in a position that must have been a real irritant to the Confederates — so much so that they initiated mining/countermining activities in early July,” says Steele. “The closeness of the lines in this sector also had the Federals lobbing grenades and using sap rollers to advance their lines.” Confederates employed “torpedoes” as land mines to block the vulnerable railroad cut that bisected their lines. On Aug. 5, less than a week after the Crater mine explosion, Confederates set off some explosions under the Union line in front of Gracie’s Salient. The action was “to no avail and minor notice,” says Steele, although two mini-craters from the explosions remain. She refers to Official Records’ reports that Confederates put 425 pounds of powder in each mini-mine as compared to 8,000 pounds which resulted in the Crater. Steele says Confederate engineer W.W. Blackford reported Confederate troops’ fear of Union mining efforts after the Crater. Blackford sent to Richmond for augurs so troops could assess underground activity by whether or not water levels had dropped in the augur holes. “He knew this wasn’t a realistic detection method, but it helped with the morale,” says Steele. “He also describes how the tunnels were guarded and plans to battle underground should one side breach the other’s tunnel.” More details from Blackford’s account of fighting at the salient, the trenches which were 50-60 yards apart, and the process of digging countermines and carrying away the earth can be found in his War Years with Jeb Stuart published in 1946. Steele says the Federals dug some countermines at Fort Stedman and Battery X. They are opposite Gracie’s and Colquitt’s salients where the original June 18 lines were so close. The Confederates held on to Gracie’s Salient. They finally drove the Federals away on Nov. 6 by raising the waters of Poor Creek with an earthen dam that cut off some retreating Union soldiers who were captured. In addition to the earlier mentioned three Confederate countermine locations within in the park, Steele reports that during the Fortifications Study Group’s Petersburg visit they found another location just off the park on private land. Another set of tunnels was near the City Point road and “seems to have been lost to modern development.” The final set of Confederate countermines was at Fort Mahone and lost to mall development in the 1960s. Steele says the collapsed tunnels at Gracie’s Salient that showed up on the radar could be explored further using ground penetrating radar, “but all this research leads us to believe there are other tunnels that have not collapsed and could be located by using radar.”
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