The Carter Farm

The Carter Farm. The Carter Garden. The Carter Family Garden occupied about two acres here. Like most antebellum gardens, it was fenced to keep animals out. At the time of the Civil War, the Carter family and their enslaved laborers raised vegetables and herbs here, accessing the garden through a gate that was located between the smokehouse and the farm office. Just west of the garden was a fruit orchard. , On the morning of November 30, 1864, Federal troops obliterated the garden as they constructed a line of earthworks diagonally across it. They ripped the fence down, leaving only the garden gate standing. During the battle, when the garden was mostly located between the main and secondary Federal lines, it became a no-man’s land of death and destruction. Confederate and Federal losses in this area totaled almost 1,900 men, and many of them fell in the blood-soaked garden. , After the war, the Carter family continued to use this area as a garden and later as a more substantial apple and peach orchard. Remnants and evidence of the battle were turned up in the soil for decades. When this section of the battlefield was reclaimed in 2009 and 2016, having been covered by these dwellings and backyards for more than a century, it could rightfully be said that there was no other piece of Civil War battlefield so important that had been lost for so long.