Today, Pete and I successfully collected the topographic data that we needed from the Union encampment. In doing so we mapped a sunken road that extends along the south side of the site, leading from the encampment to lower elevations to the west.
I suspect that this road existed during the Civil War and was one of the landscape features that led to the selection of this location as a camp. Certainly the high ground above Port Tobacco also made sense from the perspectives of defense and observation of the surrounding countryside. The military advantages of this position are not readily apparent today because of 20th-century reforestation, but the largely open landscape of the mid-19th century would have allowed ready observation and rapid response to invasion, espionage, and insurrection.
We'll have a map ready soon.
Jim
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