- Revolutionary War Series - As the Battle of Yorktown raged to the east, George Washington and his French ally Comte de Rochambeau set up their encampments in the woody perimeter around Yorktown in 1781. After hitting the key sites on the Yorktown Battlefield Auto Tour, visitors to Virginia's Colonial National Historical Park today can also …
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- Revolutionary War Series - The Battle of Yorktown, the last major engagement of the American Revolution, was a decisive victory for Gen. George Washington’s Continental Army and the death knell for continued British occupation. Today, the site of the 1781 battle is protected by Colonial National Historical Park, near the banks of the York …
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- Civil War Series - Nearly a year after the onset of the conflict at Fort Sumter in April 1861, the Civil War had seen very few significant military engagements in the Eastern Theater. Following the Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, both sides played defense: strengthening their fortifications, bolstering their ranks, and eyeing …
- Civil War Series - On May 5, 1862, as Confederates clashed with the Union Army nearby, Redoubts 1 and 2 remained silent during the Battle of Williamsburg, the first pitched battle of the Civil War’s Peninsula Campaign (March-July 1862). These redoubts constituted the far right flank of Confederate Col. John Magruder’s “third line” of …
- Civil War Series - On the eve of battle in May 1862, Confederate Col. John Magruder’s “third line” of defenses on the Virginia Peninsula comprised 14 redoubts—small, enclosed defensive fortifications built from earth, sod, and timber. Together they served to temporarily delay the Union Army of the Potomac during the Peninsula Campaign (March-July 1862) …
- Civil War Series - The Twin Forts Loop Trail in Virginia’s Newport News explores the site of the Battle of Dam No. 1, a failed Union attack on a Confederate fortification on April 16, 1862. Part of the three-month Peninsula Campaign, the Union defeat was the second of the month (a similar effort failed …
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- Civil War Series - The Battle of Lee’s Mill on April 5, 1862 was, by all accounts, a minor engagement in the Civil War: it produced only 10 Confederate and 12 Union casualties. In the narrative of Union Maj. Gen. George McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign, however, it was very consequential; a fierce Confederate resistance forced …
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- Civil War Series - Fort Monroe National Monument in Hampton, Virginia boasts the largest stone fort ever built in the United States, and its storied history spans the colonial period to the Civil War to the World Wars to the present. Its location at Old Point Comfort—the southeast tip of the Virginia Peninsula and …
- Civil War Series - Following the capture of Fort Sumter in April 1861, the Civil War’s first land battle took place on June 10, 1861 at Big Bethel on the Virginia Peninsula. Despite Virginia’s secession in May, crusty Union Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler retained a garrison at Fort Monroe at the tip of the …
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