When the Bermuda Hundred Campaign began, Confederate forces south of the James River were widely scattered across southern Virginia and eastern North Carolina. Confederate eyes were focused on events to the north where the Battle of the Wilderness . . . — — Map (db m73969) HM
The wooded area in front of you contains rare examples of a radiant heat system called a Crimean Oven. This system was used to heat hospital tents at Point of Rocks during the Civil War. The concept behind Crimean Ovens dates back to the days of the . . . — — Map (db m109398) HM
In March of 1864 Ulysses S. Grant was placed in command of all Federal forces. Grant's plan to end the war envisioned a multi-front invasion across the entire Confederacy to negate the South's ability to shift forces from one front to another. . . . — — Map (db m73965) HM
Lt. Gen. Grant’s strategy was to attack the Confederate armies on multiple fronts simultaneously so that they could not reinforce each other. In the early days of May 1864, Maj. Gen. George G. Meade moved the Army of the Potomac across the Rapidan . . . — — Map (db m73970) HM
From May 1864 until the end of the Civil War in April 1865, this land was the site of a large hospital for Federal troops who fought in the Bermuda Hundred Campaign and the Siege of Petersburg. Historic Point of Rocks is within the historic boundary . . . — — Map (db m73972) HM
Point of Rocks takes its name from a 60-foot high sandstone cliff located here along the Appomattox River. The site was used by Native Americans as a camp and observation point, and was mentioned by Captain John Smith in his notes on Virginia. A . . . — — Map (db m109399) HM
Patients at Point of Rocks Hospital were under the care of two pioneer women in the field of medicine, Clara Barton and Harriet Dame. At a time when most women were not allowed to be near the fighting, these women saw the war close up at field . . . — — Map (db m109378) HM
Battles at Port Walthall Junction
At about 4:00 PM on May 6, 1864 Brig. Gen. Charles Heckman's brigade moved down Ruffin Mill Road toward Port Walthall Junction where 600 soldiers from Brig. Gen. Johnson Hagood's South Carolina brigade . . . — — Map (db m73971) HM
Point of Rocks, named for a sandstone cliff on the Appomattox River, marked the southern end of the Union defensive line that stretched across the Bermuda Hundred peninsula. In May 1864, the Union army seized property east of the present-day park . . . — — Map (db m54255) HM
Shortly after the Army of the James landed in Bermuda Hundred, a field hospital was established here at Point of Rocks. The hospital originally consisted of tents set up in the orchard around the Strachan House. The tents were 50 feet long and . . . — — Map (db m109377) HM
This photograph was taken from across the Appomattox River behind you.
The large hospital ward in the photograph once stood in this field in front of you.
This sign was sponsored by Douglas Waters, Carrollton, TX — — Map (db m109392) HM
This photograph was taken from this spot in 1865. The flat area in front of you is where the hut in the photograph once stood. In June of 1864 a pontoon bridge was built across the marshy ground in the photograph. The first attacks on . . . — — Map (db m109374) HM
”On June 26,...just as we were having roll call and the men were about to retire for the night, the boom of a cannon a little way down the river, and the whizzing of a shell as it sped us by, aroused us to the fact that the enemy was . . . — — Map (db m109376) HM
On May 4, 1864, Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler began to load 38,000 men of the Army of the James on transport ships at Newport News and Yorktown, Virginia. Their goal was a neck of land in Chesterfield County known as Bermuda Hundred. Butler was to . . . — — Map (db m73967) HM
In April of 1864, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant met with Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler and approved his plan for attacking Richmond by moving an army up the James River. Grant decided that while the Army of the Potomac moved against Robert E. Lee and the . . . — — Map (db m73968) HM
"Petersburg at that hour was clearly at the mercy of the Federal Commander who had all but captured it"
Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard on the June 15th attack at Petersburg.
On June 9, 1864, as Grant prepared to shift his army . . . — — Map (db m109381) HM
After taking heavy losses at Cold Harbor, Lt. Gen. Grant made the decision to move his army across the James River and attack Petersburg. The capture of that city and its key rail links would cut off Richmond from the rest of the Confederacy. . . . — — Map (db m109386) HM
This house was constructed in 1841 by Rev. John Alexander Strachan, founder of Enon Baptist Church. Rev. Strachan also preached at several other congregations in the area. Family stories describe him rowing a boat across the Appomattox River to . . . — — Map (db m74662) HM
The United States Submarine Propeller Alligator
The green, 47-foot-long Alligator was the U.S. Navy's first submarine—a technological wonder of the Civil War era.
French engineer Brutus de Villeroi designed the . . . — — Map (db m109375) HM
Thousands of African-American troops served in the Army of the James under the official designation of United States Colored Troops (USCT).
Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler was a strong proponent of the use of African-American troops and had more . . . — — Map (db m109389) HM
Gabriel Archer wrote about a high rock cliff that projected into the channel of the Appomattox River upstream of its confluence with the James. When exploring the river in 1608, Smith found verdant marshes the likes of which can still be seen here . . . — — Map (db m24903) HM
"The Rocks" became a popular place for students to meet down on the Appomattox River. The group seen here is from the "Normal Class" of 1913. The term "normal" referred to teacher training programs. The "collegiate institute" included training in . . . — — Map (db m149617) HM
Lynchburg native Amaza Lee Meredith was one of the nation's few African American female architects during the mid-20th century. Her self-designed residence, Azurest South (1939), is a rare Virginia example of a mature International Style building. . . . — — Map (db m130078) HM
The site of an Appomattox Indian village burned in 1676 in Bacon's Rebellion, the present town of Ettrick stands on land that belonged to "Ettrick Banks" and "Matoax," the boyhood plantation of John Randolph of Roanoke. In 1810 Campbell's Bridge . . . — — Map (db m14622) HM
In honor of those of Ettrick
who served in the Armed Forces
and
in memory of these who made
the Supreme Sacrifice in World War II
C. Leslie Clarke • William E. Laffoon • Robert E. Marable • Charlie L. Nichols • Charles C. . . . — — Map (db m149623) WM
A small village was established by the early 1800's along the Appomattox River with 200 workers who operated the cotton mill. Millworkers' housing from the mid- 19th century onward is one of the outstanding features of the Ettrick Historic District. . . . — — Map (db m149616) HM
Frederick Francoz Simms was born to Frederick H. and America T. Ayer Simms on May 8, 1884 in New Orleans Parish. A graduate of Southern University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly known today as Southern University in Baton . . . — — Map (db m149605) HM
The Southside Railroad, completed in 1854, was one of the most important supply routes in southern Virginia during the American Civil War (1861-1865). With tracks laid east to west across the state, the railroad began began at City Point in . . . — — Map (db m149611) HM
Project Overview: In 1907, the trustees of what is now Virginia State University voted to build a new President's residence at a cost of $3,300. Named for the school's first principal, James Storum, Storum Hall is the University's oldest . . . — — Map (db m149622) HM
Project Overview: Vawter Hall was named for Captain Charles E. Vawter, a life-long educator and Chairman of the board of the Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute Board of Trustees from 1902 until his death in 1905. Constructed in 1908, it . . . — — Map (db m149619) HM
Directly across the river, Petersburg began to develop into a major industrial and commercial center. The town sprang up at the Appomattox River's fall line, where rocks and shallows prevented cargo boats from sailing upstream. Planters from the . . . — — Map (db m149613) HM
The Virginia State Normal School, now Virginia State University, purchased a two-acre tract with a mill building from John Stearns for the sum of $35,000 in 1922. The mill was used for silk dying and weaving and was one of many water powered mills . . . — — Map (db m149612) HM
Simms Hall was used to educate tradesmen. This is the only remaining structure from the building. It is believed to be a demonstration of the art of masonry. — — Map (db m149610) HM
Even though mills were thriving along the riverbank, it was not until the 1830s that the village of Ettrick took shape. In 1830, entrepreneur Jabez Smith and partner Edward Stokes purchased the old Campbell mills. By this time, the mill owners had . . . — — Map (db m149609) HM
Virginia State University was founded on March 6, 1882, when the legislature passed a bill to charter the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute. The bill was sponsored by Delegate Alfred W. Harris, a Black attorney whose offices were in . . . — — Map (db m149618) HM
Virginia State University was chartered by the Virginia legislature in 1882 as the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute. Delegate Alfred W. Harris, an African-American attorney in Petersburg, championed the charter and supported it through . . . — — Map (db m26005) HM
The Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute was chartered on 6 Mar. 1882. The Readjuster Party was instrumental in supporting a state institution of higher education in Virginia for African Americans with some unusual features to the institute's . . . — — Map (db m26007) HM
A mile north, on the site of an important Appamatuck Indian village, Sir Thomas Dale established Bermuda Hundred in 1613. The hundred was a traditional English jurisdiction of one hundred families. Dale, the deputy governor and marshal of Virginia, . . . — — Map (db m11662) HM
Point of Rocks is located two miles south on the Appomattox River. In 1608, Captain John Smith wrote abut this high rock cliff which projected out to the channel of the river. Known to all as Point of Rocks, it was severely damaged during a battle . . . — — Map (db m11844) HM
Port Walthall, which stood on the banks of the Appomattox River several miles to the south, was a major shipping and passenger embarkation point prior to the Civil War. The railroad tracks leading to the port were melted down to manufacture . . . — — Map (db m11847) HM
Originally named the Providence Manufacturing Company, Matoaca Manufacturing (Mill) had its beginning here late in the 1700s on land then known as Olive Hill Plantation. Initially operated as a grist mill, by 1838 it was producing cotton cloth and . . . — — Map (db m48473) HM
In 1810 Major John Clarke and noted Richmond lawyer, William Wirt, established a weapons factory for the U.S. War Department on the south bank of the James River five miles north of here. Bellona Arsenal, (named for the Roman goddess of war,) was . . . — — Map (db m142322) HM
Gun and gun mold recovered by C. Merle Luck from the James River on August 18, 1962 having been put there during Col. Dahlgren's Raid during the Civil War. — — Map (db m40598) HM
In 1799 the local Baptist Society acquired this land and soon built a meetinghouse. The Bethel congregation worshiped in the meetinghouse and was constituted as a church in 1817. About 1820 the members built a brick church here--the first in . . . — — Map (db m19051) HM
Half a mile north stood Black Heath, later owned by Captain John Heth, officer in Continental Army, whose son, Henry Heth, Major-General C.S.A., was born here in 1825. Coal of high quality was mined here. — — Map (db m19043) HM
In 1829 the Virginia General Assembly chartered the Chesterfield Rail Road Company, which built the first railroad in Virginia. Moncure Robinson (1802-1891), a railroad pioneer, designed the track, which once passed by here. In 1831, the company . . . — — Map (db m142323) HM
Eleazar Clay (1744-1836) led the establishment of the first Baptist church in Chesterfield County, known as Chesterfield (Baptist) Church, Rehoboth Meeting House, or Clay's Church, in 1773. He also supported the Baptist preachers imprisoned for . . . — — Map (db m35993) HM
Just south of here are the earthen remains and stone culvert of the Chesterfield Railroad. Chartered by the Virginia General Assembly in 1829, the company in 1831 constructed the first railroad in Virginia, one of the earliest in the United States, . . . — — Map (db m35998) HM
In 1700-1701, Huguenots (French Protestant refugees) settled in this region on land provided to them by the Virginia colony. The Huguenot settlement, known as "Manakin Town" centered at the former site of a Monacan Indian town, located south of the . . . — — Map (db m31544) HM
South of here are the Midlothian Coal Mines, probably the oldest coal mines in America. Coal was first mined here before 1730, and during the Revolution, coal from these mines supplied the cannon foundry at Westham. The first railroad in Virginia . . . — — Map (db m19044) HM
Welcome to the Mid-Lothian Mines Park
The Mid-Lothian Mines Park is in the heart of Midlothian’s coal mining past and is encompassed by the Richmond Coal Basin. Mining in the Midlothian area of the Basin represents the first attempt at . . . — — Map (db m31563) HM
Local Coal Mining in the 18th and 19th Centuries
Outcroppings of coal along the south bank of the James River in what is now Powhatan County were discovered circa 1700. A hunter from the nearby Huguenot settlement, Manakintown, dislodged . . . — — Map (db m31569) HM
Early History of the Grove Shaft
1836-61
The Grove Shaft plunged 625 feet and took workmen three years to dig. The Wooldridges employed 150 men and boys. Twenty-five mules stabled underground pulled coal carts on an underground railroad. . . . — — Map (db m31570) HM
The Mid-Lothian African Church
Near the Grove Shaft, 54 free blacks, slaves and six white males at the Mid-Lothian Coal Mining Company started the Mid-Lothian African Church on February 8, 1846. Assisted by the company the 60 member . . . — — Map (db m31571) HM
Coal Mining Chronology in Chesterfield
1835 Mid-Lothian Coal Mining Company is chartered.
1836 The Company organizes with 3,000 shares valued at $100 each with 1,000 shares being sold to raise $100,000 capital. The Wooldridge family . . . — — Map (db m31572) HM
Nearby stood Salisbury, built during the middle portion of the 18th century. It was a one-and-a-half-story frame house that had two asymmetrical brick chimneys. Patrick Henry leased Salisbury from Thomas Mann Randolph and lived there while he was . . . — — Map (db m19042) HM
On this site stood Salisbury, built in the eighteenth century as a hunting lodge. Here Patrick Henry lived during his fourth and fifth term as Governor of Virginia. The Confederate General Edward Johnson lived here in his later years and died here. — — Map (db m46894) HM
Some 500 feet beyond this point along both sides of Salisbury Road, roadbed remains of the Heath Gravity Railroad are visible. The railroad ran through this area from 1838 until approximately 1850. It was used to transport coal mined from the . . . — — Map (db m46893) HM
This was the home of Lt. John Trabue, Revolutionary War soldier and patriot, and of his descendants well into the 20th century. Trabue witnessed the surrender of the British forces at Yorktown in 1781 and later became an original member of the . . . — — Map (db m19014) HM
On the first day of Union Brig. Gen. August V. Kautz's second raid (12-17 May 1864) on Confederate railroads around Richmond, 3,000 cavalrymen rode northwest from Bermuda Hundred and passed Chesterfield Court House at 1:00 P.M. Arriving about . . . — — Map (db m19045) HM
Winfree Memorial Baptist Church, constituted in 1852 as Jerusalem Baptist Church, originally stood to the west on Buckingham Pike. In September 1881, to better serve the coal mining community, the frame structure was rolled here on logs. On 3 Feb. . . . — — Map (db m35994) HM
Pastor William Hickman and about 30 people founded Skinquarter Baptist Church in 1778. The first meetinghouse was located east of the church's cemetery. Hickman moved to Kentucky in 1784 and was an early Baptist leader there. Due to anti-missionary . . . — — Map (db m28921) HM
Mattoax was located to the south on the Appomattox River. John Randolph, Sr., built a house there in the 1770s that burned after 1810; it was the boyhood home of his son, John Randolph of Roanoke. Mattoax also was the residence of St. George Tucker, . . . — — Map (db m19637) HM
You are standing in the middle of the Union line that faced the Confederate route of attack up the Richmond Turnpike on May 9, 1864, during Union Gen. Benjamin F. Butler's Bermuda Hundred Campaign. Here, along Swift Creek, elements of Butler's Army . . . — — Map (db m14626) HM
The Bermuda Hundred Campaign began on May 5, 1864, when Union General Benjamin Butler and the 33,000-man Army of the James landed at Bermuda Hundred nine miles northeast of here. General Butler's westward advance threatened Drewry's Bluff and . . . — — Map (db m14635) HM
Here the Army of the James, moving on Petersburg, May 9, 1864, was checked by the Confederate defenses on the creek and turned northward. — — Map (db m14629) HM
The little white chapel that stood here was built by soldiers of the garrison and held 150 people. Different ministers came from Richmond each week to preach. A small burial ground was located just 50 yards beyond the chapel—a reminder that . . . — — Map (db m37025) HM
After the repulse of the Union Navy on May 15, 1862, Drewry’s Bluff became famous as a tangible symbol of Confederate resistance. Work crews made up of impressed slave labor continued construction of the fort, eventually completing a four-sided, . . . — — Map (db m55349) HM
By 1863 the Drewry’s Bluff post expanded into a military city. Hundreds of Confederate soldiers, sailors, and Marines camped on these grounds. The Confederate States Naval Academy held classes in buildings and aboard the side-wheeled steamer CSS . . . — — Map (db m46891) HM
Built before 1732 by Henry Cary, this was the home of Colonel Archibald Cary, a Revolutionary leader of Virginia. The house was moved, 1929-30, to its present location off Cary Street Road in Richmond's West End. — — Map (db m24997) HM
From this point the Confederates, on May 16, 1864, moved to attack the Union Army of the James under Butler advancing northward on Richmond. — — Map (db m14893) HM
May 15, 1862 When Federal gunboats round the bend, they enter a shooting gallery. Confederate soldiers and marines along the riverbanks rake the decks with musket fire. These batteries, ninety feet above the water, are perched too high for . . . — — Map (db m14897) HM
Around the turn of the 20th century, James Bellwood, an agriculturalist and the owner of this property set aside a few acres to be used as a wooded preserve and imported a pair of elk from Yosemite National Park and Washington State. The elk became . . . — — Map (db m73984) HM
Formerly Spring Creek Church. Organized, July 25, 1790. Benjamin Watkins, founder and first pastor, 1790-1831. Located four miles northwest, 1790-1855. Then four miles southwest, 1855-1897. Moved to this location, 1897. Home church of Nannie Bland . . . — — Map (db m31545) HM
“Drewry’s Bluff, at least for the present, is the headquarters of the Corps, and I may consequently reasonably expect to stay here for some time at least.”
Henry Lea Graves, 1862
From 1862 to 1865, the training of . . . — — Map (db m55347) HM
Archibald Cary established an iron forge on the south bank of Falling Creek in 1750. The Chesterfield forge, as it was known, converted pig iron into bar iron. Initially unprofitable and shut down, the forge would be restarted and become . . . — — Map (db m101039) HM
The history associated with Falling Creek Park spans more than 400 years. Numerous industries existed along the creek from the 17th to the early 20th century.
The earliest industry that existed at this location was the first iron furnace . . . — — Map (db m101036) HM
The presence of the Confederate bastion here at Drewry’s Bluff was one reason that most of the Civil War action around Richmond occurred north of the James River. Strong earthen fortifications and river obstructions, erected in 1862, effectively . . . — — Map (db m15080) HM
This bluff on the James River, a mile east, was fortified by Captain A. H. Drewry in 1862. A Union fleet, attempting to pass it, was driven back, May 15, 1862; and thereafter it served as a bar to attacks on Richmond by water. On June 16, 1864, . . . — — Map (db m16021) HM
John Smith recalled visiting the Arrohateck Indian capital during a May 1607 expedition led by Christopher Newport. The town was located on the northern shore of the James River opposite of here and was noted on John Smith’s 1612 Map of Virginia. . . . — — Map (db m37032) HM
Along this trail the first shots were fired in the campaign to capture Richmond that would last from 1862 to 1865. This one-half mile trail will take you to the Confederate fort named Fort Drewry by southerners and Fort Darling by the Federals. On . . . — — Map (db m15169) HM
(left panel)
Visiting Richmond National Battlefield Park
The concentration of Civil War resources found in the Richmond area is unparalleled. The National Park Service manages 13 sites, giving visitors an opportunity to examine the . . . — — Map (db m37022) HM
“Mr. President, these are the young heroes of Fort Darling…. The President took them all by the hand and personally thanked them for their magnificent conduct and example, ordered that each one should receive a Medal of honor and to be . . . — — Map (db m37027) HM
Vanished now but for a trace, Falling Creek is the site of the first industrial ironworks in the New World. The close proximity of iron ore, wood for fuel and power provided by the falling water made the Falling Creek site perfect for this . . . — — Map (db m32587) HM
Nearby on Falling Creek is the first ironworks in English North America. It was established by the Virginia Company to supply iron for the colony and for export to England. Construction began in 1619. The works, including a blast furnace, were . . . — — Map (db m16015) HM
The site of Virginia’s first wayside park was established in 1934. It was developed to serve as a picnic area by the Virginia State Highway Department and the Chesterfield Garden Club in 1933-1934. A State Historical Marker located in . . . — — Map (db m101031) HM
The site of Virginia’s first wayside park was established in 1934. It was developed to serve as a picnic area by the Virginia State Highway Department and the Chesterfield Garden Club in 1933-1934. A State Historical Marker located in . . . — — Map (db m101042) HM
Immediately after the battle, men of Chesterfield County’s own Southside Artillery, along with others, worked to strengthen the fort. The section before you was likely their first project. Eventually the earthworks around you formed an enclosed . . . — — Map (db m37029) HM
Eastward 150 yards was the Confederate Fort Darling which constituted, with the works at Chaffin’s Bluff across the James, the main defence of the approaches to Richmond by water. Often the target of Federal fire, Fort Darling held out till Richmond . . . — — Map (db m14278) HM
“Neither army, however, manifested any disposition either to advance or retire. It was a case of stand and fire, each endeavoring to cripple the other the most, and gain, if it could, some advantage here or there. The enemy’s one battery . . . — — Map (db m14895) HM
Built in 1862, Fort Stevens was part of the Confederate inter-defense line of Richmond. This fort was named for Col. W.H. Stevens, who was in charge of the construction of Richmond’s defenses. Most fortifications were built quickly and made of earth . . . — — Map (db m14903) HM
The United Daughters of the Confederacy conceived of the Jefferson Davis Highway in 1913, along the same series of roads in Virginia that U.S. Route 1 later followed. The Virginia General Assembly officially designated the United Daughters of the . . . — — Map (db m101041) HM
The United Daughters of the Confederacy conceived of the Jefferson Davis Highway in 1913, along the same series of roads in Virginia that U.S. Route 1 later followed. The Virginia General Assembly officially designated the United Daughters of the . . . — — Map (db m101045) HM
Located at this site was the beginning of one of the earliest residential communities in Chesterfield County.
Historic Village Of Bensley
Created by Albert Bensley in 1909, the Village of Bensley was marketed as a modem, convenient . . . — — Map (db m101037) HM
Located at this site was the beginning of one of the earliest residential communities in Chesterfield County.
Historic Village Of Bensley
Created by Albert Bensley in 1909, the Village of Bensley was marketed as a modem, convenient . . . — — Map (db m101044) HM
It was the end of an era: the advent of the ironclad made traditional wooden-hulled warships obsolete. Despite this, the Confederates used a centuries-old device here: the hot-shot furnace. Inside the furnace, solid shot were heated red-hot. Clay . . . — — Map (db m55350) HM
This is the location of the first iron furnace established in the New World, started in 1619 and completed in 1622. Iron ore had been extracted from James River outcrops as early as 1608, and these samples were shipped to England. The Virginia . . . — — Map (db m101038) HM
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