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Petersburg • East • Southeast • West • Monuments • Markers • Facts • Timeline

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The ‘Dictator’ wayside marker is at Stop One on the Petersburg National Battlefield Eastern Front Auto Tour. It is on a walking trail from the Visitor Center next to the replica of the mortar, set up in the same location as the original.

The replica was cast from concrete to the exact dimensions of the original mortar, and was placed in its actual location.

The 17,000 pound mortar was originally fired from a railcar on the line from City Point. The first flatcar that it was fired from was destroyed by the recoil. Its reinforced successor would be thrust down the tracks with each firing, while the mortar itself would surge back on the car. The mortar was finally placed in a permanent installation protected from Confederate counterbattery fire.

Company G of the First Connecticut Heavy Artillery manned the giant mortar. The regiment had been in charge of the Army of the Potomac’s siege artillery since the days of General McClellan.

From the marker:

Dictator

 Sept. 1864: “…the enemy frequently shoot very large shells into Petersburg & do some damage to buildings, but the people are getting used to it, so they don’t mind them….”

– A.I.P. Varin 2nd Mississippi

Famous but militarily ineffective, the “Dictator” fired on Petersburg from this spot during July, August, and September 1864.

The Dictator was a 13-inch seacoast mortar similar to the one in front of you. It was the largest gun used during the siege and could lob a 225-pound explosive shell more than two miles. During its service in the siege lines, the Dictator fired 218 rounds at Petersburg and its defenses.

This view, taken from your left, shows the Dictator and the entrance to its powder magazine.

A battery of 10-inch mortars at work. Watching mortar shells arc through the night sky became a popular – and sometimes dangerous – spectator sport.