Beginning in August 1862, Confederate Captain Charles Dimmock oversaw construction of a ten-mile line of defensive fortifications around Petersburg. Free and enslaved Black laborers performed most of the work. In late spring 1864, work on the Dimmock Line stopped because of U.S. Army troop movements, and in June 1864 a Confederate officer noted that the lines were still weak. Battery 5 was one of the largest of the fifty-five artillery positions on the Dimmock Line.