I'm curious about the area you're referencing. Governor Vance ordered the construction of earthen breastworks to completely surround the city in 1863, but they ended up not being used. I've read the earthworks were about 5 feet high, with some dozen batteries for cannon at intervals. Do some remain intact? I thought there were only remnants behind Mordecai Historic Park.
The original 1863 map shows 17 batteries. None of them still exists today as such, but I think that many of their locations are still discernible as mounds or platforms -- here's one example I wrote up:
https://raleighswall.wordpress.com/...c-southernmost-redan-on-todays-s-saunders-st/ . That location lies to the south, near the S. Saunders St. exit of I-40. If the redans are drawn to scale, they would have been about 100-150 feet wide, so the platforms they were built on would have been even larger. So we're talking about relatively massive structures.
Where I think we have prospects of identifying and perhaps preserving Raleigh earthworks is along the lines of entrenchments shown on the map. The line I mentioned before (crossing homeless encampments) lies between S. Wilmington St and Fayetteville St near Eliza Pool Park. In a few areas, the lines seem to run across semi-public land like that. In other cases, they run through neighborhoods and could very well be found in people's backyards.
As you mentioned, I've seen references saying they would have been about 5 feet high. One primary source I have found describes them as "breastworks," which I think implies that they would have been built to breast height, so 5 feet could be correct. We're unlikely to find anything near that height remaining today, more likely just low mounds or slightly raised areas on the ground.
As far as the homeless camps: This photo below shows Fayetteville St near its intersection with S Wilmington. to the left at the top of the hill is the likely location of the Fayetteville Rd redan. The promontory here at center is where I think a set of advanced works were built, looking out over the Walnut Creek waterway. The original Fayetteville Road (now Street) has been rerouted slightly since CW times -- I think it originally ran about 100 feet to the left, where the old waterworks are.
This photo below is up at the top of the hill near the likely Fayetteville Road redan location. Eliza Pool Park is to the left, and the woods to the right are where people are living, and where the line of entrenchments probably ran.
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