{"id":2586,"slug":"petersburg-national-battlefield-petersburg-virginia","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Petersburg is the siege — the 292 days of trench warfare that ended the Civil War, the longest siege in American history and the preview of the Western Front. Grant's railroad-cutting campaign; the 70,000 casualties; the USCT regiments in their largest deployment — the war's endgame was fought in the Petersburg trenches.","The Crater is the siege's horror — the Pennsylvania coal miners' 586-foot tunnel under Elliott's Salient, the 8,000 pounds of powder that blew the gap, and the attack that went into the hole instead of around it. The USCT division that went in last went farthest; the crater is still there.","The siege broke the Confederacy — the nine months of trench warfare, the April 2 breakthrough, Richmond's fall, and Appomattox a week later. The file keeps the siege's mechanics: the longest in American history, the Crater that was the worst moment, and the trenches that are still legible in the park's earthworks.","Petersburg is the archive's siege file — the 292 days that ended the war, the Crater's mine and massacre, and the trenches that are the Western Front's American preview."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Petersburg is the archive's trench file — the longest siege in American history, the Crater, and the earthworks that are the war's most intact fieldworks.","A siege that ended a war keeps its trenches — the file's suggestion being that Petersburg's hold is the crater: the mine the coal miners dug, the hole that's still there, and the 292 days that made Appomattox."]}],"name":"Petersburg National Battlefield","aliases":[],"type":"BATTLEFIELD","type_label":"Battlefield","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","LOCAL_FOLKLORE","CIVIL_WAR"],"groups":["dark-history","legends"],"desc":"Nine and a half months of siege—the war’s longest.","full_desc":"Petersburg National Battlefield is a battlefield in Petersburg, Virginia. Nine and a half months of siege—the war’s longest. The archive files it under the Civil War, dark history and local folklore. The dossier holds 1 reported claim, 1 legend and 1 documented fact — documented record and retelling kept side by side. The ground is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"Petersburg","county":null,"state":"Virginia","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":37.20473,"lon":-77.392368,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":"Historic site / park","research_notes":"VA battlefields batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":59.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":2097,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported figures in the earthworks and on the siege lines. A fortification's lore is written in its casualty ledger; Petersburg National Battlefield's ledger gave the reports plenty to work with. It survives as local folklore, which is to say it survives because people keep telling it. 'Siege of Petersburg' carries the account. It is the sighting the place is known for, and it hasn't stopped.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","evidence_label":"Local folklore","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Siege of Petersburg","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Petersburg","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"The siege ran June 1864 to April 1865—the war’s longest. The documented date is 1864-06–1865-04. A fort with documented casualties writes its own foundation — the lore comes after. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. The record appears in 'Siege of Petersburg'. It is the kind of fact the rest of the dossier leans on.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1864-06","date_end":"1865-04","confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Siege of Petersburg","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Petersburg","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Reported figures in the earthworks and on the siege lines. A fortification's lore is written in its casualty ledger; Petersburg National Battlefield's ledger gave the reports plenty to work with. Local lore carries the account; no documentation has ever caught up with it. The tale is the site's other archive — oral, embroidered, and outlasting the documents.","earliest":null,"evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","source":{"name":"Siege of Petersburg","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Petersburg","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Battlefield site; interpretive trails or markers are typically available. Check the managing agency for hours.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Siege of Petersburg","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Petersburg","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Petersburg National Battlefield","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petersburg_National_Battlefield","desc":"United States Civil War site","extract":"Petersburg National Battlefield is a National Park Service unit preserving sites related to the American Civil War Siege of Petersburg (1864–65).  The battlefield is divided between unincorporated Prince George County, and the independent city of Petersburg, both in Virginia, and includes outlying components in Hopewell, Prince George County, and Dinwiddie County. Over 140,000 people visit the park annually.","img":"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Restored_entrance_to_mine%2C_Petersburg_VA.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled","score":104,"lat":37.21944444,"lon":-77.36138889},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":1,"entities":0,"sources":1}}