Devil's Den, a rocky focal point on the second day of Gettysburg, will close for 6 months as park addresses erosion and safety issues

Visitors to Devil's Den a few years after the battle (Library of Congress)

A second landmark at Gettysburg National Military Park will close for several months this year for major rehabilitation.

Park officials announced Thursday that work at Devil’s Den is expected to begin on March 21. The closure will last five to six months as crews address “significant erosion and safety issues in this highly visited area of the battlefield.”

Devil’s Den was the scene of fierce fighting on July 2, 1863, during the decisive battle. The boulder-strewn hill was the object of forces under Confederate Lt. James Longstreet. The Rebels took the position and engaged in fire with Union troops on Little Round Top.

The park said the work is needed because of the erosion along existing walkways and from unauthorized social trails that have created safety hazards.

“The scope of the project will reestablish, preserve, and protect the features that make up this segment of the battlefield landscape,” it said in a statement. “These improvements will allow visitors to better immerse themselves into the historic landscape that is essential to understanding the three-day Battle of Gettysburg.”

Crawford Avenue, Sickles Avenue and the Devil’s Den parking area will remain open as much as possible for visitor use. Adjacent battlefield locations, such as the Slaughter Pen, Devil’s Kitchen, and the Triangular Field, will all remain open. The construction contractor will occasionally need to close all road access around the area, but notices will be posted ahead of time, the park said.

View of Devil's Den from Little Round Top (Wikipedia, Wilson44691)

The announcement came about a month after the National Park Service detailed a rehabilitation project on Little Round Top, where Union forces fought off a furious Confederate assault, also on July 2.

Park officials said they are addressing ongoing problems at the overcrowded site. They cited erosion, overwhelmed parking areas, poor accessibility and related safety hazards, and degraded vegetation.

“This project will also enhance the visitor experience with improved interpretive signage, new accessible trail alignments, and gathering areas. These improvements will allow visitors to better immerse themselves into the historic landscape that is essential to understanding the three-day Battle of Gettysburg,” a news release said. 

An update this week said tree cutting was completed last month and the overall project is out for bid, with two contracts: one for overall construction and the second for revegetation of Little Round Top.

The closure of Little Round Top is expected to begin sometime between March 20 and June 21. The project will take up to 18 months to complete, officials previously said.

After the park announced the Devil's Den closure in a Facebook post, critics and supporters weighed in. One said the need for work at both areas has been known for years and the public will be disappointed that two landmarks will be closed at the same time. Others said people should be grateful the work is happening to perpetuate the memory of those who fought there.

Park spokesman Jason Martz told the Picket in an email that the timing of the projects is coincidence, but they are both meant to address problem areas.

Cannons and cribs: Archaeologists provide details on Revolutionary War weapons and Confederate water obstructions found in Savannah River

Planks at the bottom of this obstruction are shown in dark area (USACE)

Over the years, underwater archaeologists have found that amid all the junk littering the bottom of the Savannah River is a trove of treasure.

Such was the case in 2021, when they spotted 15 Revolutionary War-era cannons and explored obstructions placed in the river 85 years later during the Civil War.

Contractors working for the US Army Corps of Engineers surveyed and dived two Confederate “cribs” -- or tall wooden boxes filled mostly with brick – that discouraged the approach of Union ships to the port city. Forces towed the wooden obstructions, believed to be 40 feet by 40 feet, and put them in place near Fort Jackson and the ironclad CSS Georgia, a floating battery that was part of the Savannah River defenses.

Archaeologists last month provided details of the Revolutionary War and Civil War artifacts during a public event at the Savannah History Museum. Three cannons were recovered last year, while the other 12 were pulled up in January.

The Army Corps’ Savannah district funded the hard-hat dives as part of the busy Georgia port’s channel deepening.

About a half dozen severely degraded cribs are on the South Carolina side of the river. Crews focused on what are called cribs C and D.

Commonwealth Heritage Group divers found some planks used to build Crib C.

“On top of the planks it was tons of bricks that we dug through, and then underneath the planks it was sterile sand and Miocene clay, which is the base of the river,” said archaeologist Stephen James. “That basically told us we were at the bottom of the crib.”

They found an intact corner at Crib D. While C won’t be impacted by the deepening, the remnants of D were documented and then largely destroyed by dredging, James said. “There is very little of the cribs left.”

The Confederacy used a wide array of weapons and obstructions to deter advances on Savannah from the sea. Besides forts and warships, wooden cribs, pile dams, torpedoes (mines), snags, logs and shipwrecks were employed.

Divers located an intact corner on this obstruction (USACE)

Time and dredging have taken their toll on the cribs over the past 160 years. But that’s not all.

After the Civil War ended in 1865, the city wanted to reopen the port and it hired salvage companies to remove river obstructions, including the cribs and pieces of the scuttled CSS Georgia. 

“They had their own demolition. Surprisingly, they had divers back then, had pretty heavy-duty machinery to pull that stuff down,” said Will Wilson of Commonwealth Heritage Group. Of course, not all of the objects were removed or recovered in the 19th century.

Topographic view of four cribs from survey. Dredged channel is in blue (USACE)

The Corps is in charge of the ongoing deepening of the Savannah harbor and the dives are part of an investigation of historical resources that have been or could be affected.

Officials referred to period maps and descriptions from Union Corps of Engineers Capt. William Ludlow and a Capt. Boutelle for information on the cribs.

The CSS Georgia is on the National Register of Historic Places and the cribs are eligible for inclusion, officials say.

Civil War author and preservationist Robert Hicks dies at 71

Robert Hicks, whose best-selling novel “The Widow of the South,” set during the 1864 Battle of Franklin, Tenn., evoked the bravery and bloodshed that he sought to memorialize as a leading preservationist of Civil War history, died Feb. 25 at his home in Franklin. He was 71. Mr. Hicks helped lead Franklin’s Charge, a nonprofit organization founded in 2005 to preserve the Civil War battle sites of Middle Tennessee and to educate the public about the history that transpired there. -- Article

Trail project at Kennesaw Mountain battlefield turns up an artillery round from the Civil War. It's a mystery as how it came to rest there

Bomb squad members gingerly removed this round from the battlefield (NPS photos)

Last week, a team of seven people were out in the northern part of Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, conducting a metal detecting survey for a trail rerouting project.

National Park Service archaeologists at the Civil War site northwest of Atlanta, meeting the requirements that they record historic resources or properties during a project, got a reading from something nearly a foot below the surface.

Chief Ranger Anthony P. Winegar dug and found an intact artillery shell, believed to be a Parrott round, and within minutes called in the bomb squad from the Cobb County Police Department. Technicians carefully finished digging out the shell and took it away.

“This was found behind the Confederate line in the northern part of the park,” Winegar told the Picket in an email Tuesday. “Without further evidence I am hesitant to interpret the location, orientation, or status of the munition. What is known is that it was likely percussion fused and still intact.”

Federal and Confederate forces tangled at Kennesaw Mountain and nearby sites from June 19 to July 2, 1864. A large frontal assault by Union Gen. William T. Sherman failed on June 27. Combat over several days produced about 4,000 casualties in the campaign to take Atlanta.

Artillery played a major role in the fighting, according to the NPS. Sherman, eliminating the element of surprise, launched a barrage from below the mountain on June 27 before the assault.

It had little effect on the Confederates above, who effectively used their guns to halt the subsequent Union attack.

Among the guns used at Kennesaw Mountain was the 10-pounder Parrott rifle, which had a range of nearly two miles (updated).

When asked how the round came to be in the location, Winegar said: “I can only say that orientation of the artifact in situ would indicate that it came from the Confederate line towards the Union line. Based on the depth it is possible that it was fired and impacted, likely short of its intended target, and did not detonate. That, however, is speculation.”

The Southeast Archeological Center of the National Park Service said it was conducting the survey for a new hiking trail with the help of four volunteers.

“There is an old ‘truism’ in archeology – the most exciting find is almost always on the last day,” the center said in a Thursday Facebook post. “And this project was no exception. On the last day the team found an intact 10 lb. Parrott shell! This shell had a percussion fuse that did not ignite when it hit the ground.”

Winegar says it is unusual to find unexploded ordnance (UXO) on the battlefield.

“Often times UXO that the park encounters is brought to us by families who are trying to get rid of them.”

The ranger said the artillery round found Feb. 24 will be “disrupted” – meaning it will be hit with a charge to render it safe. The park will take custody of the remaining pieces. 

“This is common practice involving potentially unstable unexploded ordinance (UXO) that is not a rare item. Rarer pieces may be treated differently so that the intact piece is not lost. This does not appear to be a rare item.”

Cobb County police spokesperson Officer Shenise Barner said the ordnance was collected by the bomb squad for safe keeping.

Some on the Join Cobb Police Facebook page, which first posted news of the find, questioned why it is necessary to destroy or damage the item. "Absolute travesty to destroy this historical object. These are easy to make inert," wrote one person.

The page responded to such criticism: "The bomb squad stated that they would love nothing more than to preserve this piece of history, however there is no way to safely render it without counter charging it. They try to use the smallest charge appropriate. This charge is very small and will perforate the case. Unfortunately, even small amount of live explosives can set the whole shell off."

Winegar reminds people that metal detectors and the hunting of artifacts are forbidden on federal land, including Kennesaw Mountain.

“My advice to the public is to treat all UXO as potentially deadly. In short, leave it alone and ask for experts to get involved quickly and early.”

Parrott guns were a mainstay in the war. Here, one at Gettysburg (Wikipedia)

Another look at the shell found at Kennesaw Mountain (NPS)

Niagara Falls marker to recall Confederate spy and saboteur

The name of John Yates Beall doesn't mean much today, even to heavy-duty Civil War buffs. But in late 1864, Beall was among America's most wanted men. And his capture in Niagara Falls, N.Y., is about to be commemorated with a historical marker.

Beall was assigned by the Confederate government to enter Union territory and do as much damage as he could. Beall captured and robbed a ship on Lake Erie, sank another ship, tried to derail a train running between Buffalo and Dunkirk and was steps away from making his getaway when he was captured. -- Article