The Headwaters Trail

The Headwaters Trail. . 1 - A Desolate Landscape , The Boisseau family became the owners of this tract in the early nineteenth century. William Boisseau developed the property into a plantation he named Tudor Hall. By 1864 much of the acreage had been cleared for agriculture, however, its deforestation was almost total after the contending armies began operations that fall. Soldiers clear-cut the remaining trees to provide open fields of fire and materials for the construction of fortifications, winter quarters, and firewood. The Civil War Trust clear-cut the section to your southern front to reflect the landscape's appearance in 1864-5., 2 - Pushing the Frontier , As Colonial-era European-Americans arrived into what would become Dinwiddie County and displaced Native Americans, they encountered vast forests. Initially roads were little more than paths of poor quality. However, as settlers brought additional slaves to help clear the land, small farms developed and crop fields appeared among the timbered landscape. Petersburg's emergence as a center of commerce - due largely to its location on the Appomattox River - spurred greater efforts to develop more Dinwiddie County land for cash crop cultivation at the turn of the nineteenth century., 3 - Chesapeake Bay Watershed , Every mighty river starts somewhere as a little trickle. After a rainfall, the water in this small depression drains into Rohoic Creek and flows four miles to the northeast into the Appomattox River. Fourteen miles further downstream the Appomattox merges into the James River at City Point. The river significantly expands as it travels another seventy miles to Hampton Roads before entering the Chesapeake Bay. After a journey of more than one hundred miles, a drop of rain here could reach the Atlantic Ocean., 4 - Tobacco Boom , At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the land here in Southside Virginia, and extending southward into central North Carolina, became the center of Golden Leaf tobacco production in the United States. This crop required intensive hand labor for its cultivation and thus brought with it a corresponding increase in the demand for slave field labor. By 1860, more than forty-eight percent of Dinwiddie County's population was enslaved. Slaves made up more than seventy percent of neighboring Amelia and Nottoway counties' populations, both of which were also large tobacco producers., 5 - Original Logging Bridge , Twentieth-century loggers made necessary changes to the local landscap in order to harvest the timber resources in this forest. They created logging roads, and obstacles such as streams were forded or bridged to allow their vehicles and machinery access to the tree, and to transport the logs to processing centers. This small bridge is made of decades-old planking and has survived years of changing weather and diverse modes of traffic., 6 - Confederate Rifle Pits , Following the loss of their original picket line during the fighting on March 25, 1865, Gen. Samuel McGowan's Brigade had to dig new rifle pits nearly five hundred yards closer to their main entrenchments. The Confederate earthworks protecting the Boydton Plank Road stand just four hundred yards to the northwest. On March 29th, the bulk of the brigade, minus its pickets, marched south to Hatcher's Run, leaving four North Carolina regiments protecting a mile of the line. The closer proximity allowed Federal officers the opportunity for reconnoitering. "General Wheaton visited the picket line today and together we crawled through the slashing until we nearly reached the enemy's pickets," recalled Lieut. Col. Elisha H. Rhodes of the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry, "where, with our glasses, we counted the cannon in their works and tried to select positions for our troops to occupy in the coming assault.", "During our last night as picket guard it seemed ominously still, and we heard, or imagined we heard, smothered orders and an occasional rattle of canteens, and we became impressed with the idea that the enemy meant mischief and were massing troops in our immediate front." Sgt. Patrick Henry Reilly, 1st South Carolina Infantry, 7 - Rohoic Creek , In August 1864 Gen. Robert E. Lee instructed his engineers to construct a dam on Rohoic Creek beyond Battery Forty-five. This three hundred-foot embankment stood fifty feet tall and one hundred feet thick at its base. When full, the creek backed up for half a mile to the depth of five to thirty feet. This impenetrable inundation helped relieve the Confederate infantry's strain in their expanding line of fortifications. The dam broke in early 1865 and the flood carried trees, men, and material into the Appomattox River. Engineers once more rebuilt the dam and it helped stymie Col. Thomas W. Hyde's brigade in their charge up Church Road on March 25, 1865., 8 - Logging Deck , During the 1930's this land transitioned to lumber production. Loggers planted and harvested pine trees with the aid of power saws and truck transportation. They used this logging deck to prepare harvested trees for movement to the mill sites and further processing. Loggers built the numerous trails that run through this land to support this effort., 9 - Across This Ground , On the morning of April 2, 1865, Federal soldiers in Col. Oliver Edwards's brigade charged from your right to left up this gradual slope rising from Rohoic Creek. "We went in on the jump," claimed Corporal Joseph F. Ellis, 5th Wisconsin Infantry. "Every man yelling, many shooting, all running, carrying our guns any way, every man paying no attention to what was being said or done by the rest; all charging upon the black darkness ahead.", 10 - Confederate Earthworks , A portion of the main Confederate line of fortifications constructed in October 1864 is visible through the woods at your right front. The Southerners built this line to protect Boydton Plank Road, one of the last lines of supply and communication into Petersburg at that point in the campaign. In order to create the defensive fortifications the local terrain went through another dramatic transformation as crop fields were excavated and any standing timber cut to help construct the earthworks., 11 - Seize that Battery , First Lieutenant Frank S. Halliday led a detachment of thirty men from the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry in storming a Confederate battery near this point. After a brief fight that resulted in the capture of four Napoleon twelve-pounders, the North Carolinians rallied to expel the Federals from the work. "Private [William] Railton did not seem inclined to leave, but went to work to load the piece, which he did to the muzzle with stones, iron, etc." recalled Halliday. "When the enemy's line was not over thirty feet away, he touched off the gun, which blew into thousands of pieces, but such destruction of life I never saw, before or since.", 12 - Sally Port , Just in front of you is a "sally port," a small opening in the earthworks constructed by the Confederates to access their picket guard posts that lie beyond. Theis gap in the line was also used to gain access to the "sinks" (latrines), which were constructed in front of the earthworks, providing another unsavory obstruction for the attacking Union army. This break in the fortification line, however, created a weakness used by the Federals in their attack on April 2, 1865., 13 - Confederate Winter Camps , The Confederate soldiers manning the earthwork line built winter quarters in the area behind you. Typically Civil War armies did not move much during the winter months due to unpredictable road conditions. Soldiers usually constructed winter quarters by cutting nearby trees and sometimes by scavenging materials such as brick, planks, and rails from area farms. These structures helped the men endure the harsh winter conditions by providing a level of warmth and comfort not available in tents., "We Don't anticipate another engagement with the Yankees soon for we have been building winter quarters for the last few days with great rapidity. We are building just in rear of our works." Pvt. Alfred Proffit, 18th North Carolina Infantry, 14 - Return to Nature , Joseph and Ann Boisseau returned to a home devastated by war. Unable to resume large-scale agricultural practices, Joseph sold the property in 1869 to Asahel Gerow and moved into the city of Petersburg. Asahel had traveled south from New York after the war looking for a warmer climate to relieve a severe heart condition contracted twenty years earlier during the California Gold Rush. The Gerows did not attempt to restore Tudor Hall plantation to its former agricultural productivity. The once-barren battlefield soon became choked with a second-growth forest. Periodically the land would be timbered, but, according to family lore, Asahel's son, Smith, warned loggers and grandchildren alike to be mindful of the earthworks. We also kindly request that park visitors stay on the trail to preserve the historic earthworks., 15 - Modern Preservation , The Pamplin Foundation acquired this land from Asahel Gerow's descendants. Today Pamplin Historical Park preserves much of this landscape and its historical, cultural, and natural resources through a process known as selective clearing. Leaving the larger trees in place to promote a natural environment, prevent erosion, and provide shade, the smaller underbrush is cleared out to allow visitors to appreciate the terrain as the soldiers would have experienced it during the April 2, 1865 combat. Five miles of interpretive walking trails provide the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of those who came before us.