Eastern Front Visitor Center at Petersburg National Battlefield

GENERAL INFORMATION

The Eastern Front Visitor Center is the main visitor center at Petersburg National Battlefield. It is located at 5001 Siege Road in Petersburg.

OPERATING HOURS

The Eastern Front Visitor Center is typically open daily from 9 AM to 5 PM, except when closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. Keep in mind that times can always change, so before heading to the park, be sure to get the latest schedule on the National Park Service’s official Operating Hours and Seasons web page for Petersburg National Battlefield.

AMENITIES

• Ranger-staffed information desk where you can pick up a free park brochure, trail maps, and pamphlets on Grant’s Headquarters and other Petersburg Battlefield topics
• Siege of Petersburg Museum
• Park film shown in a cineplex-quality movie theater with stadium seating
• Book / souvenir store
• Restrooms
• Cannon exhibit outside

Cannon exhibit outside Petersburg National Battlefield’s Eastern Front Visitor Center

PARK FILM

The park orientation film, Endurance Without Relief, plays every half hour on the hour and lasts 20 minutes. The first showing is at 9 AM and the last at 4:30 PM. The film was produced in 2015 and provides an overview of the events that took place in the nine and a half months of the Siege of Petersburg. There are no re-enactments in the film. Instead, the story of Petersburg is told through drawings depicting life on the battlefield and historical photographs, including images taken of the dead. A human element, which often takes a somber tone, is added through the use of quotes from documents such as letters sent home by soldiers and newspaper articles of the time. The ending of the film is haunting as a passage from the Reverend David Macrae is read while images from the Union and Confederate cemeteries fill the screen.

If you wish to save time or want to familiarize yourself with the Siege of Petersburg before arriving at the park, you can watch Endurance Without Relief on Petersburg National Battlefield’s YouTube channel.

MUSEUM

Siege of Petersburg Museum at Petersburg National Battlefield’s Eastern Front Visitor Center

The Eastern Front Visitor Center’s Siege of Petersburg museum is housed in a circular exhibition area, the center of which is the theater. The exhibits are arranged by topic such as soldier life, medical care during the war, battlefield communications, and artillery.

Civil War-era medical supplies and equipment on display at Petersburg National Battlefield’s Eastern Front Visitor Center

Soldier’s life exhibit at the Eastern Front Visitor Center’s museum, Petersburg National Battlefield

In addition to the information panels, there is a collection of replica regimental flags and plenty of artifacts from the battle itself. A diorama of a moat filled with items found in the trenches and elsewhere on the battlefield is of particular interest.

Replicas of regimental flags on display at Petersburg National Battlefield’s Eastern Front Visitor Center (right to left): 200th Pennsylvania Infantry, 6th U. S. Colored Troops, 12th Virginia Infantry

Artifacts found on the Petersburg battlefields on display at the Eastern Front Visitor Center

Artifacts found on the Petersburg battlefields on display at the Eastern Front Visitor Center

One of the highlights of the museum is a discussion of The Crater. In an effort to get through the Confederate line of defense, Union soldiers from Pennsylvania who worked in the coal mines before the war dug a long tunnel under Elliott’s Salient (an earthen Confederate fortification) with the intent of planting and detonating four tons of black powder. In the early morning of July 30, 1864, the fuse was lit, and the resulting explosion killed 278 Confederate soldiers and left a 500-yard hole in the Confederate line. Images and artifacts from the operation are on display, including an actual hardtack box (food storage container) that was used to haul dirt out of the mine shaft. It is the only one known to still exist.

Exhibit on The Battle of the Crater at the Eastern Front Visitor Center’s Siege of Petersburg Museum, Petersburg National Military Park

Lone surviving hard tack box use to haul dirt from the Union tunnel under Elliott’s Salient on display at the Eastern Front Visitor Center, Petersburg National Battlefield

The artillery exhibit is also quite enlightening. The display consists of the tools of the trade and an explanation of how they all worked together. This is particularly interesting because it explains how pulling a cord on a cannon would ignite and fire the powder. Also included in this exhibit are artillery pieces of various sizes, shells—some opened to allow visitors to see what made them so deadly—and a photograph of one of the largest artillery implements at the time, a mortar known as The Dictator. The Dictator was capable of firing 225-pound shells over two miles, well into the Confederate fortifications. A similar mortar is on display near Confederate Battery 5, which is a short walk from the Eastern Front Visitor Center.

Civil War-era artillery shell exhibit at Petersburg National Military Park’s Eastern Front Visitor Center

Historical photograph of The Dictator mortar used by the Union

SCHEDULING YOUR TIME

Allow 45 minutes to an hour for your visit to the Eastern Front Visitor Center. This allows time to talk with a park Ranger about what there is to see and do at Petersburg National Battlefield, watch the 20-minute Endurance Without Relief, and read through the information in the museum, which takes another 20 minutes or so.

Richmond-area writer and photographer David Pearson contributed text and photographs for this article.

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