Images (2)
Original caption: This large sea-coast mortar is mounted on a special flat-car made very strong for this purpose. This mortar-car is on General Grant's Military Railroad, at Petersburg. The car is readily moved along the line and the mortar is fired whenever required; it is thus made very effective and annoying to the enemy, for it is something like the Irishman's flea, "when they put their hand on it, it aint there;" in other words, when they turn the fire of their batteries on the "Dictator," our boys hitch on to the car and run it along out of the line of fire and commence pegging away again. By the time the "Johnnies" find out where the "Dictator" is and get the range to smash it, "it aint there" again; the boys run it along to a new stand for business.
- Part of Library of Congress Collection, Stereographs of the Civil War