Crater, Confederate Lines, Petersburgh Virginia

A photograph of a group of tourists inspecting Confederate Army fortifications outside Petersburg in Virginia, America, taken by an unknown photographer in 1867. This photograph is from an album entitled 'Canada and the United States. 1867' by John Downes Rochfort (1825-1885), who toured Canada and America in 1867.

Only two years after the American Civil War ended, its battlefields had become tourist destinations. Here, guides show well-dressed visitors around the Confederate outer defences or picket line outside Petersburg. Union troops besieged Petersburg for nine months before finally capturing it in April 1865.