- 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 …
- Civil War Series - Northern Virginia’s Arlington National Cemetery occupies a prized piece of real estate, just across the Potomac River from Washington, DC. At 624 acres, the sloping hillsides contain the graves of thousands of American military veterans, dating back to the Civil War, as well as a handful of notable civilians, including …
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- Civil War Series - On July 21, 1861, Union troops crossed northern Virginia’s Bull Run in pursuit of what was supposed to be the nascent Civil War’s first and only decisive battle. Spirits were high; Gen. Irvin McDowell, tasked by President Lincoln to oversee the offensive, led a hodgepodge of Northern volunteers, enlisted for …
Continue reading First Manassas Trail (Manassas National Battlefield Park, VA)
- Civil War Series - Occupying prime position atop a high hill in northern Washington, DC, Fort DeRussy was mostly quiet during the Civil War. But for two days in July 1864—when Confederate General Jubal Early’s Second Corps attacked the city, the war’s only raid on Washington—the artillerymen at the fort unleashed more than 100 …
Like most marshy environments, the defining feature of the Mason Neck peninsula is, of course, the water that surrounds it. Despite being well upstream of the ocean, the Potomac River at Mason Neck still ebbs and flows with the Atlantic tides, and the inlets of Belmont Bay and Kane’s Creek give life to freshwater wetlands …
- Civil War Series - In September 1862, Confederate General “Stonewall” Jackson used Loudoun Heights as a staging ground for the bombardment of the picturesque—but also strategic—town of Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. Today, remnants of the Civil War have mostly disappeared from the ridgetop, but spectacular views of Harper’s Ferry and the confluence of the …
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