"The Dictator" or "The Petersburg Express"

donna

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
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Now Florida but always a Kentuckian
"The Dictator" or "The Petersburg Express' The nicknames for a famous 13-inch, 8.5-ton mortar used by the Union army during its long siege of Petersburg, Virginia in 1864-1865. The Dictator fired 200-pound missiles from a railroad flatcar and a wooden ground platform. The siege ended in the tenth month on April 2, 1865.

From The Language of the Civil War by John D, Wright page 88.
 
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Was there a couple years ago, here's a pic of it.
 
Nice photo. I don't understand why, but I feel Petersburg is one of the least appreciated CW sites to visit. There is so much more there than a crater.
 
Thanks Pat!
Thanks for the heads up on the mortar as well...I have it labeled in my computer as "The General" but thought I may have misnamed it.
 
Thanks Pat!
Thanks for the heads up on the mortar as well...I have it labeled in my computer as "The General" but thought I may have misnamed it.
The "General" was the name of the train hijacked by Union raiders and was the title of Buster Keaton's great film version of the event.
 
That's right...I must be having one of them senior moments my father keeps telling me about
Thought so. :thumbsup: For some strange reason, i recently confused the two names. Could it be that Dictator and general both represent authority figures and are stored in the same general memory area? :thumbsdown:
 
According to article "Fort Foote Guardian of Washington DC and The Dictator - a Union Mortar" by Charles H. Bogart: "It is uncertain as to what happened to the Dictator following the Civil War, but it is assumed that it was cut up in one of the WWI or WWII scrap drives. A replica of the Dictator sits today in the ravine adjacent to the railroad tracts .." . Thus there is replica at Petersburg Battlefield.
 
The NPS has facilities where they make replica guns. How to spot the real thing from a replica has something to do with markings on the breech, but I forget exactly what.
 
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