Meadow Farm

Meadow Farm. The Road to Yellow Tavern. , On May 4, 1864, Union Gen. George G. Meade's Army of the Potomac crossed the Rappahannock River to engage Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and destroy it. This maneuver bean the Overland Campaign, part of Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's plan to strike Confederate forces simultaneously throughout the South. Some of the bloodiest fighting of the war occurred as Grant and Meade followed Lee south: the Wilderness, May 5-7; Spotsylvania Courthouse, May 8-18; North Anna River, May 23-26; and Cold Harbor, June 1-3. In mid-June, the ten-month siege of Richmond and Petersburg began., On the morning of May 11, 1864, Union Gen. Philip H. Sheridan and two divisions of his cavalry corps passed by here. Sheridan's raid toward Richmond, which began two days earlier, was intended to locate and defeat Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry corps. Sheridan sent elements of his corps to Ashland, Allen's Station (Glen Allen), and Hungary Station to destroy the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad track. He and the other two divisions continued down Mountain Road toward present-day U.S. Route 1. Later in the afternoon, Sheridan's men finally caught up with Stuart's corps at Yellow Tavern four miles southeast of here. Stuart was mortally wounded and died the next day., Dr. John Mosby Sheppard, his wife, Virginia Young Sheppard, and their nine children lived here at Meadow Farm. Their eldest son, Alexander Hamilton Sheppard, was a guard at Libby Prison in Richmond, where captured Union officers were confined. Like other farmers, the Sheppards paid a tax of a tenth of their crops and meat "for the common defense and [to] carry on the government of the Confederate states." Such taxes, the shortage of consumer goods, and rampant inflation all contributed to the deteriorating quality of Southern life.