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The “Fort Stedman” wayside marker is at Stop Five on the Petersburg Eastern Front Auto Tour.
Fort Stedman was a critical point in the Union siege lines around Petersburg. It was unusually close to the Confederate lines, limiting the time an attack would be exposed to detection and fire. A Confederate breakthrough here would also threaten the supply lines for Union forces around Petersburg.
In the early hours of March 25, 1865, Confederate Major General John Gordon led a carefully planned attack which surprised and ovewhelmed the Union defenders and captured the fort. But determined resistance from neighboring Fort Haskell (at Tour Stop 6) and prompt and determined counterattacks by the Union Ninth Corps recaptured the fort, with heavy casualties to Gordon’s men.
It was the last major assault of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in the Civil War. Lee’s losses were irreplacable, and the men he had stripped from his lines to launch the attack had left them dangerously weakened. Grant knew this, and would quickly take advantage of it.
Text from the monument:
Fort Stedman
It is quite interesting to see a fort going up. The men work in the manner of bees. The mass throw the earth; the engineer soldiers do the ‘rivetting,’ that is, the interior facing the logs. The engineer sergeants run about with tapes and stakes, measuring busily; and the engineer officers look as wise as possible and superintend.
– Col. Theodore Lyman, USA
With up to six cannons and 300 infantrymen as garrison, Fort Stedman was typical of the more than 30 forts that studded the Union siege lines. Its main distinguishing characteristic: the Confederate line lay only 300 yards away.
Caption to the main photo:
Union engineers elected to leave Stedman’s trees standing – an uncommon luxury for the troops stationed here. The photograph above was taken from where you are standing.
Caption to the inset photo:
Dirt and logs gave shelter against Confederate shells and bullets. Life in the fortifications was, wrote one soldier, “Endurance without relief; sleeplessness without exhilaration; inactivity without rest; and constant apprehension requiring ceaseless watching.”
Location of the marker
The “Fort Stedman” wayside marker is inside the earthworks of the fort at Stop Five.