At the Petersburg National Battlefield the Park Service has recreated a small portion of a fort to show more accurately what the string of forts protecting or attacking Petersburg and Richmond would have looked like. Even with their effort the trees add an element missing from the battlefield as they were cut down for a great distance to build forts and other defenses, camp homes and storages, used for cooking and heating, bridges and roads, and to clear fields of fire. Yet this is still instructive. You can see the two outer ditches, the built up earthwork fortification reinforced with extra defenses and the perspective of both the attacker and the defender.
