North American Database of Archaeological Geophysics
North American Database of Archaeological Geophysics
Abstract/Summary:
Project Name: Taylor House (Petersburg National Battlefield), VA;
Reference: Bevan, B.W. (1996). Geophysical Exploration for Archaeology, Volume A: Archaeological Questions and Answers. Geosight Technical Report Number 4.
Bevan, B.W. (1998). Geophysical Exploration for Archaeology: An Introduction to Geophysical Exploration. Midwest Archeological Center Special Report No. 1. United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Midwest Archeological Center, Lincoln, Nebraska.
Geophysical investigations were conducted at the Taylor House and at Fort Morton, two areas located within the Petersburg National Battlefield near Petersburg, Virginia. In 1864 and 1865, the last major battles of the Civil War were fought in this area when two large armies opposed each other during the siege of Petersburg. The Petersburg National Battlefield is a park which commemorates that siege and preserves its historical and archaeological record. It is administered by the National Park Service.
The Taylor House area is a grassy field. The house, which was owned by the Taylor family, was destroyed early in the battle and there is currently no visible trace of it. The size, location, and orientation of the buried remains of the Taylor House are revealed by the geophysical survey. The direction of the magnetic north changes year to year, and it is estimated that the building was along a magnetic east-west line in about 1825 and 1785; however, the accuracy of this estimate is not good enough to date the construction of the building, which was about 1760.
A large earthen fort called Fort Morton was built during the siege. The Taylor family leveled the fort immediately after the Civil War and there is no trace of it at the surface now, just a grassy field. This geophysical survey located those parts of the fort which were dug into the soil during the Civil War and have been preserved since the siege. While the entire area of Fort Morton was surveyed with widely spaced measurements, three parts of it were surveyed with closely spaced geophysical measurements allowing smaller features to be detected. One area of detailed survey is named the Bombproof detail because it is located where trenches were dug in the middle of the fort to protect the soldiers from projectiles. The geophysical survey gave indications that a fire might have burned the surface in this area during or after the siege.
A second area of detailed survey was selected just north of the fort. This rectangle crosses the main fortification trench and is called the Trench detail. A comparison with the fortification map indicates that several additional excavations were dug on the east side of the trench; this is the side of the trench which is protected from the opposing forces. It is possible that these pits are the remains of the subterranean huts of soldiers.
The third area of detailed survey was a small square centered on a massive iron object. The exact pattern of the underground iron here cannot be determined, but it is probably a dense concentration of many iron artifacts rather than a solid iron shaft. It is unclear how deep the iron extends. While it is most reasonable that the iron was thrown into the well at the end of the Civil War siege, it is not impossible that the well was filled earlier in this century, when the land was converted from a farm into a park.