Duane's Siege Battery, Petersburg

Civil War Field Fortifications

Magazines

Detached Magazines

Duane's Siege Battery, Petersburg

This half sunken battery was rather typical of the many batteries constructed in the Federal siege lines in front of Petersburg, Virginia in 1864. It was designed to receive an artillery armament of six pieces mounted on siege carriages firing through embrasures. The height of the interior crest of the parapet was eight feet above the terre-plein, the parapet was 120 feet long and the epaulments were 20 feet long. The terre-plein was 20 feet wide with its length broken by two 10 x 17 feet gabionade traverses. Three boyaux, communication trenches, accessed the terre-plein from the rear.

As can be seen in the illustration the placement of the battery's magazine was conventional and according to accepted design theory while the position and protective arrangements of the gallery were somewhat unconventional. The magazine was sited in rear of the terre-plain on a line with the right traverse which left about 10 feet of undisturbed soil between the perimeter of the covering mass and the terre-plein. Its chamber was probably fully framed with strong timbers and was fully sunken with timbers composing the roof resting on the natural level of the ground. The interior dimensions of the chamber were 10 x 12 feet laid out with the longitudinal section parallel to the battery's parapet. This arrangement protected the chamber from horizontal fire passing just over or grazing the parapet and traverse. The covering mass, which was about eight feet thick over the roof of the chamber and sloped at the natural angle assumed by the soil provided protection from vertical fire delivered from light mortars and would deflect shot and shell delivered by horizontal fire upward and away from the chamber. In contravention to accepted theory the chamber entrance and gallery were positioned on the engaged side of the magazine and the gallery under the covering mass was angled toward the perimeter of the covering mass rather than fully turned to prevent splinters and debris from ricochetting into the chamber. The gallery exited the perimeter of the covering mass into a trench which was turned to emerge onto the terre-plein directly in rear of the Number Five gun platform. This placed the entrance to the gallery trench on a direct line in rear of an embrasure which would have increased the vulnerability of troops passing ammunition out of the magazine when the battery was under fire.

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