Crater Battlefield: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Petersburg National Battlefield
Layton T, Foulds E, Killion J. 2026. Crater Battlefield: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Petersburg National Battlefield. Cultural Landscapes Inventory Report. 300198. National Park Service. NPS Northeast Regional Office, Boston, Massachusetts / CRIS-CL Database
Crater Battlefield is part of Petersburg National Battlefield, a unit of the National Park Service (NPS) located in south central Virginia in the City of Petersburg. The 2,659-acre park was established in 1926 to commemorate the campaign, siege, and defense of Petersburg in 1864 and 1865, and to preserve the breastworks, earthworks, walls, and other defenses or shelters used by the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War. The Battle of the Crater came six weeks after the initial assault (June 1864) on Petersburg. Union forces developed a plan to end the stalemate by excavating a tunnel under an entrenched Confederate position and destroy it by way of an underground mine. The explosion below Elliott’s Salient detonated during the early morning of July 30 and initiated a bloody and ultimately unsuccessful Union attack. The outcome of the battle was that Confederate troops held their line and prolonged the siege. The battle captured the public imagination in the years following the war, and continues to do so today, attracting approximately 80,000 visitors annually. Petersburg National Battlefield is comprised of separate geographical areas that form a semicircle to the east, south, and west of Petersburg: Grant’s Headquarters at City Point, the Eastern Front, the Western Front, and the Five Forks Battlefield. The 301-acre Crater Battlefield is within the park’s Eastern Front unit, which shares boundaries with the city and the Fort Lee army base. Most visitors enter the Eastern Front from State Route 36 and proceed on the paved one-way Tour Road. The Crater Battlefield, around four miles south on the Tour Road, includes the mine shaft entrance and the massive depression created by the explosion, earthen defensive structures such as parapets, trenches, and covered ways, as well as earthen batteries and bombproofs. Vegetative cover on these features ranges from managed turf to non-historic woodlands. Several key battle-era views across fields and meadows are maintained, but much of the site is covered by successional woodlands that have grown at varying rates. Later commemorative monuments and markers installed between 1905 and 1927 form a layer of development over the 1864–65 battlefield landscape. In addition to the Tour Road, parking and pull-off areas, paved walks, and earthen trails provide access through the site and past traces of historic circulation routes no longer used. Visitor facilities also include a comfort station, interpretive waysides, and fencing. The Norfolk Southern Railroad bisects the Crater Battlefield and presently serves as an active rail freight line. The railroad cut, along with Poor Creek that also bisect the site, were important obstacle, cover, and concealment locations, particularly during the initial assault and subsequent siege of Petersburg.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Layton, Tim; Foulds, Eliot; Killion, Jeff
- Date of Issue
- 2026
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- NER , PETE
- Keywords
- Agricultural Field, Agricultural Outbuilding, and War Vehicles), Battery (Defense), Battle of the Crater, Battle Site, Battles in the North and South, Black, Conservation, Crater Battlefield, Eastern Front, Engineering, Ethnic Heritage, Expanding Science and Technology, Griffith Farm, Historic Preservation, Historic Site, landscape preservation, Military, Military (Fortifications, Monument (Marker, OCLP, Olmsted Center, Other (Commemoration), Outdoor Recreation, Plaque), Shaping the Political Landscape, Single Family House, Spring Meadow, Taylor Farm (Spring Garden), Technology (Engineering and Invention), The Civil War, The Federal Government Enters the Movement., Transforming the Environment, Weapons
- Subjects
- CRIS-CL: 300198: Crater Battlefield