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The Old Men and Boys monument is on the west side of Crater Drive one mile south of the exit from the park boundary of the Petersburg Battlefield Eastern Front. (see map below). The monument is on a small plot of land at the end of a residential neighborhood and at the beginning of a series of commercial businesses. It is on the site of Battery 27 of the Dimmock Line, the original Confederate defenses of Petersburg. It is also about 200 yards northwest along Crater Road from the monument to the 48th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
The Old Men and Boys monument is on a low mound on a small plot of land at the end of a several blocks of residences.
The monument commemorates the men of Colonel Fletcher Archer’s local militia company who manned bastions 27 and 28 of the Dimmock Line on both sides of Jerusalem Plank Road (now called Crater Road) during the attack on Petersburg on June 9, 1864 by 4,500 Union troops under Major General Qunicy A. Gilmore.
Assisted by Confederate General Raleigh Colston, (who was in Petersburg without a command) and nine gunners with a 12-pounder howitzer, they fought until nearly surrounded by 1,300 Union cavalrymen under Brigadier General August Kautz. They were still fighting as they fell back, leaving behind thirty dead and forty prisoners. But they had held long enough for Confederate reinforcements to arrive.
Kautz and Gilmore pulled back and returned to Union lines across the Appomattox. It was the opening skirmish of a fight that would go on for another nine and a half months.
From the marker
This stone marks the spot where
the old men and boys of Petersburg
under Gen. R.E. Colston and
Col. F.H. Archer
125 strong
on June 9th, 1864
distinguished themselves in a
fight with 1,300 Federal Cavalry
under Gen. Kautz, gaining time for
the defeat of the expedition.
—–
Placed by the Petersburg Chapter
U.D.C. May 1909
Just past the monument heading south houses turn into commercial businesses. The monument to the 48th Pennsylvania is on the other side of the building in the far distance.
Location of the monument
The Old Men and Boys monument is on the west side of Crater Road in between E. South Boulevard and South Sycamore Street. It is one mile south of the exit from the Petersburg Eastern Front onto Crater Road. (37°12’15.4″N 77°22’55.8″W)