Cold Mountain

The strategically important town of Petersburg, Virginia - on the Appomattox River - has a battle history going back to the American Revolutionary War. What did the town, whose landscape still bears scars of the battle in which Inman nearly died, look like in the 19th century?

• Petersburg at the time of the American Civil War



• Campbell's Bridge on the Appomattox River



• Christ Church in April of 1865



• Johnson's Mill at Petersburg, near the end of the war



• Scene on the Appomattox River near Petersburg



• Aqueduct above Petersburg



• Appomattox Manor, an impressive house near Petersburg

Matthew Brady's photo outfit, whose photographers documented so many Civil War scenes, also took pictures at Petersburg. Their work, preserved in the National Archives, shows Petersburg transformed from town into a besieged battlefield where the brutality of fighting between North (111,000 - 113,000 men) and South (47,000 - 51,000 defenders) was unimaginable.