Leaving the plank-road, and striking across the open country, we found, in the midst of weedy fields, the famous “crater,”—scene of one of the most fearful tragedies of the war. It was a huge irregular oblong pit, perhaps a hundred feet in length and twenty in depth. From this spot, spouted like a vast black fountain, from the earth, rose the garrison, and guns, and breastworks, of one of the strongest Rebel forts, mined by our troops, and blown into the air on the morning of July 30th, 1864.
There was a deep ravine in front, up in the side of which the mine had been worked. The mouth was still visible, half hidden by rank weeds. In spots the surface earth had caved, leaving chasms opening into the mine along its course. The mouth of the Rebel counter-mine was also visible,—a deep, dark, narrow cavern, supported by framework, in the lower side of the crater. Lying around were relics of the battle,—bent and rusted bayonets, canteens, and fragments of shells. In front were the remains of wooden chevaux-de-frise, which had been literally shot to pieces. And all around were graves.
In the earthworks near by I saw a negro man and woman digging out bullets. They told me they got four cents a pound for them in Petersburg. It was hard work, but they made a living at it.
Riding southward along the Confederate line of works, we came to Fort Damnation, where the Rebels used to set up a flag-staff for our boys to fire at with a six-pound Parrott gun, making a wild sport of warfare. Opposite was Fort Hell, built by our troops, and named in compliment to its profane neighbor. The intrenched picket-lines between the two were not more than seventy-five yards apart; each connected with its fort by a covered way. These works were in an excellent state of preservation. Fort Hell especially, constructed with bomb-proofs and galleries which afforded the most ample protection to its garrison, was in as perfect a condition as when first completed. With a lighted torch I explored its magazine, a Tartarean cave, with deep dark chambers, and walls covered with a cold sweat.
All along in front of the Rebel defences extended the Federal breastworks, and it was interesting to trace the zigzag lines by which our troops had, slowly and persistently, by scientific steps, pushed their position ever nearer and nearer to the enemy’s. Running round all, covered by an embankment, was Grant’s army railroad.
Having driven southward along the Rebel lines to Fort Damnation, and there crossed over to Fort Hell, we now returned northward, riding along the Federal lines. A very good corduroy road, built by our army, took us through deserted villages of huts, where had been its recent winter-quarters; past abandoned plantations and ruined dwellings; over a plain which had been covered with forests before the war, but where not a tree was now standing; and across the line of the Norfolk Railroad, of which not a sleeper or rail remained. We passed Fort Morton, confronting the “crater”; and halted on a hill, in a pleasant little grove of broken and dismantled oaks. Here were the earthworks and bomb-proofs of Fort Stedman, the possession of which had cost more lives than any other point along the lines, not excepting the “crater.” Captured originally from the Rebels, retaken by them, and recaptured by us, it was the subject of incessant warfare.
At the Friend House, farther on, stationed on an eminence overlooking Petersburg, was the celebrated “Petersburg Express,”—the great gun which used to send its iron messengers regularly into the city.
On the Friend Estate I saw, for the first time, evidences of reviving agriculture in this war-blasted region. A good crop of corn had been raised, and some five and thirty negro men and women were beginning the harvest. There was no white man about the place; but they told me they were working on their own account for a portion of the crop.
Returning to town by the City-Point Road, we set out again, in the afternoon, to visit the more distant fortifications beyond Forts Hell and Damnation.
Driving out on the Boydton Plank Road to the Lead Works, we there left it on our right, and proceeded along a sandy track beside the Weldon Railroad where wagon-loads of North Carolina cotton, laboring through the sand, attested that the damage done to this railroad, in December of the previous year, by Warren’s Corps,—which destroyed with conscientious thoroughness fifteen miles of the track,—had not yet been repaired.[[3]]