Battery 45 - Fort Lee

Battery 45 - Fort Lee
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You get used to seeing the entrenchments as you drive along the roads west and sooth of Petersburg, but I missed this one the first time I went by it.  I came from the west, but when you go by from the east (from the right) the stone monument is easier to see.

I would have thought that this was just an embankment, but it's actually the front of Battery 45, also known as Fort Lee.  I did a little exploring in the trees, and this is one massive battery - very substantial earthworks.  Quite extensive too, with the embankments easily piled a half dozen or more feet high, and a deeply dug pit still visible where the munitions were likely kept.

The embankment on the right is the west flank facing Fort Gregg.  Cannon firing over this wall supported the heroic Confederate effort to keep the Union troops from overwhelming Fort Gregg in April 1865.

Battery 45, while it did engage the enemy troops attacking Fort Gregg, did not fall, but was abandoned by the Confederate army later that night as they marched west as the evacuated the lines around Richmond and Petersburg, and head towards General Johnston in North Carolina, I believe it was. I'll look it up, and get the info later.