Fort Hell and the 7th Maine Battery, part 2

Around Dec. 1, 1864, the 7th Maine Battery occupied Fort Sedgwick, similar in design to the well preserved Fort Stedman (above) at Petersburg National Battlefield Park. Also called “Fort Hell,” Sedgwick was located farther west from Stedman. (Brian F. Swartz Photo)

Orders later came in November 1864 for the 7th Maine Battery to occupy Fort Alexander Hays on the Petersburg siege lines. Upon his arrival at the new port, Senior 1st Lt. William Berry Lapham realized the fort was “a soft place to spend the winter months.”

His men started chopping trees and building housing and stables, but “as was frequently the case in the army life,” high command shifted the battery to Fort Sedgwick, known along the siege lines as “Fort Hell.”

Move immediately, do so at night, and be quiet about it, came the order.

Senior 1st Lt. William B. Lapham commanded the field artillery (including the 7th Maine Battery) stationed at Fort Sedgwick during the last months of the war. (Maine State Archives)

Orders later came in November 1864 for the 7th Maine Battery to occupy Fort Alexander Hays on the Petersburg siege lines. Upon his arrival at the new port, Senior 1st Lt. William Berry Lapham realized the fort was “a soft place to spend the winter months.”

His men started chopping trees and building housing and stables, but “as was frequently the case in the army life,” high command shifted the battery to Fort Sedgwick, known along the siege lines as “Fort Hell.”

Move immediately, do so at night, and be quiet about it, came the order.

A deep ditch extended the entire length” of Fort Sedgwick, which “had a commanding position, situated on high ground,” Lapham noted.

Shaped like a sithering snake, a sunken access road — a “covered way” in army parlance — led to Sedgwick’s rear entrance, Excavated “so deep [and wide] that men and artillery” could move without Confederate detection, the road branched right and left to access the adjoining defenses. With enemy sharpshooters a serious issue, the Maine boys appreciated the relatively safe route to and from their camp.

Other Union batteries initially occupied the fort. Then, “one morning in early December,” four 12-pounder s from the 7th Maine Battery and a two-Napoleon section from the 3rd New Jersey Battery (under 2nd Lt. Carl Machewsky) went into the fort, Lapham reported.

The 7th Maine’s other two guns rolled into Battery 21, abutting Fort Sedgwick on the right. A Coehorn mortar battery was placed on the fort’s right flank, a second battery on its left flank. Lapham commanded the eight 12-pounders, but not the Coehorns.

Combat artist Alfred Waud sketched a Union battery in action at Fort Sedgwick (a.k.a. “Fort Hell”) in August 1864. (Library of Congress)

The infantry regiments stationed either side of Fort Sedgwick in December included the 48th Pennsylvania, the 7th Rhode Island, “and one or two other regiments,” Lapham said. “The ranking officer,” Colonel Henry Pleasants of the 48th Pennsylvania, commanded the infantry, but not the artillery.1

A civil engineer in Pennsylvania’s coal industry before the war, Pleasants had joined the 48th as a captain in July 1861. Soon after the regiment joined the Petersburg siege, he proposed excavating a mine beneath Elliott’s Salient, a Confederate position, and blowing it and its defenders sky high. Attacking Union troops could punch through the resulting hole, roll up the enemy fortifications, and capture Petersburg.

High command approved the idea.

With the guidance of Pleasants (now a lieutenant colonel), 48th Pennsylvania coal miners dug the mine shaft and packed its chamber beneath Elliott’s Salient with 8,000 pounds of gunpowder. Pleasants lit the original fuse early on Saturday July 30; the fuse burned out, two 48th Pennsylvania volunteers crawled into the shaft and lit a new fuse, and a colossal explosion at 4:44 a.m. opened a hole 170 feet in length and around 30 feet in depth.

A detailed drawing of Fort Sedgwick was done by William P. Hopkins, historian of the 7th Rhode Island Infantry Regiment. The 7th Maine Battery manned the actual during the last months of the Civil War. (www.petersburgproject.com)

Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, the IX Corps’ commander, had ordered black troops trained to attack the enemy lines either side of the explosion. Blatant mismanagement by Maj. Gen. Gorge Meade, the Army of the Potomac commander, led to untrained white troops rushing into the crater rather than around it.

Confederate reinforcements came up and slaughtered the white troops and the trained black regiments, sent in too late. Burnside, on whom Meade would dump all blame for the Crater fiasco, lost 3,798 men, including many men belonging to the brand new 31st and 32nd Maine infantry regiments.

Their role in the Crater now only a memory, the 48th Pennsylvania lads arrived at Fort Sedgwick by December 1.

Four oxidized bronze cannons stand at various embrasures inside Fort Stedman at Petersburg National Battlefield Park. Senior 1st Lt. William L. Lapham commanded six 12-pounder Napoleons at Fort Sedgwick and two more cannons in adjacent Battery 21. (Brian F. Swartz Photo)

Its cannon embrasures faced northwest, west, and southwest. William Palmer Hopkins of the 7th Rhode Island, which camped a short distance behind Fort Sedgwick and held the entrenchments to its immediate left, recalled that “there were three separate positions in the one straggling enclosure” to “Fort Hell.”

Fort Sedgwick — “the left battery” — was “nearest to the front,” and separated by a short “infantry parapet” to the northeast stood Battery 21, “also known as Fort Wright, as as Little Fort Hell.” noted Hopkins, a musician who transferred from Co. D to Co. I that winter. Farther to the right flank rose Battery 20, sheltering 24- and 64-pound mortars. Hopkins believed Battery 20 was part of Fort Sedgwick, but Lapham thought otherwise.1

The opposing lines lay close at Fort Sedgwick. Union pickets dug in “about 40 yards front of the [fort’s] ditch,” Lapham estimated, and some Confederate picket posts stood “within 20 yards of ours.” Five hundred yards to “our left front” rose Confederate-held Fort Mahone, dubbed “Fort Damnation” by Yankees.

On a map he drew of the Fort Sedgwick environs, Hopkins marked the distance to Fort Mahone as 1,850 feet..

Lapham noticed “another large redoubt” beyond Mahone and a redoubt “toward our right. Farther to the right … a battery of eight-inch mortars” strengthened that section of the enemy lines. “Long and constant practise [sic] had given” the enemy gunners “the range of our works and also the distance.”

Next week: An infantry colonel wants to hear the cannons roar

Sources: William P. Hopkins, The Seventh Regiment Rhode Island Volunteers in the Civil War, The Providence Press, Boston, Massachusetts, 1903; Brevet Maj. William B. Lapham, With the Seventh Maine Battery, War Papers Read Before the Commandery of the State of Maine, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Vol. 1, The Thurston Print, Portland, Maine, 1898



If you enjoy reading the adventures of Mainers caught up in the Civil War, be sure to like Maine at War on Facebook and get a copy of the new Maine at War Volume 1: Bladensburg to Sharpsburg, available online at Amazon and all major book retailers, including Books-A-Million and Barnes & Noble. —————————————————————————————————————–

Brian Swartz can be reached at visionsofmaine@tds.net. He enjoys hearing from Civil War buffs interested in Maine’s involvement in the war.

Brian Swartz

About Brian Swartz

Welcome to "Maine at War," the blog about the roles played by Maine and her sons and daughters in the Civil War. I am a Civil War buff and a newspaper editor recently retired from the Bangor Daily News. Maine sent hero upon hero — soldiers, nurses, sailors, chaplains, physicians — south to preserve their country in the 1860s. “Maine at War” introduces these heroes and heroines, who, for the most part, upheld the state's honor during that terrible conflict. We tour the battlefields where they fought, and we learn about the Civil War by focusing on Maine’s involvement with it. Be prepared: As I discover to this very day, the facts taught in American classrooms don’t always jibe with Civil War reality. I can be reached at visionsofmaine@tds.net.