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Battles in Virginia [ edit] Battle of First Bull Run (July 21, ) Battle of Hampton Roads (USS Monitor and CSS Virginia) Peninsula Campaign Seven Days Battles Battle of Malvern Hill . Mar 01, · The best Civil War battlefields and other sites in Virginia 1. Manassas Battllefield. Manassas National Battlefield Park is a historical site located in Manassas, Virginia. The 2. . National Battlefield Parks. APPOMATTOX COURT HOUSE NATIONAL HISTORIC PARK. On April 9, , Union and Confederate forces, led by Generals Grant and Lee, met in the village of MANASSAS NATIONAL .
Famous virginia civil war battlefields. MilitaryByOwner Blog
Although the battlefields are the main attraction, those who want to experience lesser known Civil War sites can drive down Lee Drive, a Park Service road that follows five miles of the main line the Confederate Army marched during the Battle of Fredericksburg. It was a pivotal site in the Battle of Fredericksburg and is the only spot where visitors can follow in the footsteps of history by tracing the Union army’s actions on December 13, , from the beginning to the bloody end.
History lovers have several stops to make in the bustling city of Richmond , located about two hours south of Manassas. The city was the Confederacy’s capital and a major target for Northern forces during the war, and Richmond National Battlefield Park is the site where two union campaigns nearly captured the Confederate capital. Grant’s hopes of breaking through to the city. A large section of Richmond burned during the Confederate occupation in , but many historic structures are still standing, including Tredegar Iron Works, which produced most of the Confederate army’s munitions and now serves as the park’s visitors’ center.
Richmond is also home to the American Civil War Museum , an institution that explores the war itself along with the legacy left behind. Unionist support was further eroded for many Virginians by Lincoln’s first inaugural address , which they felt was “argumentative, if not defiant. The fourteen proposals defended both slavery and states’ rights while calling for a meeting of the eight slave states still in the Union to present a united front for compromise. From March 15 through April 14 the convention debated these proposals one by one.
Lewis Edwin Harvie of Amelia County offered a substitute resolution calling for immediate secession. This was voted down by 88 to 45 and the next day the convention continued its debate. Sir, the great question which is now uprooting this Government to its foundation — the great question which underlies all our deliberations here, is the question of African slavery. Mississippian Fulton Anderson told the convention that the Republicans were hostile to the slave states, accusing the Republican Party of having an “unrelenting and eternal hostility to the institution of slavery.
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the turning point of secessionist sentiment in Virginia. Secretary of State William Seward that it would be abandoned.
At Lincoln’s invitation, unionist John B. Baldwin of Augusta County met with the president on April 4. Baldwin explained that the unionists needed the evacuation of Fort Sumter, a national convention to debate the sectional differences, and a commitment by Lincoln to support constitutional protections for southern rights.
By some accounts, Lincoln offered to evacuate Fort Sumter if the Virginia convention would adjourn. Events then outpaced the convention.
On April 6, amid rumors that the North was preparing for war, the convention voted by a narrow to send a three-man delegation to Washington to determine from Lincoln what his intentions were. Beauregard to take the Fort before supplies could reach it. But that morning, Confederate forces had already opened fire on Fort Sumter, beginning the Civil War.
The delegates learned of the attack on Fort Sumter from Lincoln, and the president informed them of his intent to hold the fort and respond to force with force. Reading from a prepared text to prevent any misinterpretations of his intent, Lincoln told them that he had made it clear in his inaugural address that the forts and arsenals in the South were government property and “if News of the Fort’s fall reached Richmond on the evening of April Jubilant crowds poured into the streets and expressed fervent secessionist desire.
The American flag was lowered from over the capitol building, replaced with the Confederate flag. The convention reconvened on April 13 to reconsider Virginia’s position, given the outbreak of hostilities. War Department, Washington, April 15, To His Excellency the Governor of Virginia: Sir: Under the act of Congress for calling forth “militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, repel invasions, etc.
Your Excellency will please communicate to me the time, at or about, which your quota will be expected at its rendezvous, as it will be met as soon as practicable by an officer to muster it into the service and pay of the United States. The quota of Virginia’s state militia called for, in the table attached to this letter, was three regiments which would have a total of 2, men to rendezvous at Staunton, Wheeling and Gordonsville. Governor Letcher and the recently reconvened Virginia Secession Convention considered this request from Lincoln “for troops to invade and coerce” [36] lacking in constitutional authority, and out of scope of the Act of Governor Letcher’s “reply to that call wrought an immediate change in the current of public opinion in Virginia”, [36] whereupon he issued the following reply:.
Executive Department, Richmond, Va. Since that time I have received your communications mailed the same day, in which I am requested to detach from the militia of the State of Virginia “the quota assigned in a table,” which you append, “to serve as infantry or rifleman for the period of three months, unless sooner discharged. Your object is to subjugate the Southern States, and a requisition made upon me for such an object – an object, in my judgment, not within the purview of the Constitution or the act of – will not be complied with.
You have chosen to inaugurate civil war, and, having done so, we will meet it in a spirit as determined as the administration has exhibited toward the South. April 17 marked the effective secession of Virginia. Ex-Governor Henry A. Wise gave a fiery speech in which he announced that as he spoke the Virginia militia was seizing the Federal armory at Harper’s Ferry , which had only a few years prior been the subject of John Brown’s raid.
So too was the Gosport Navy Yard about to be seized. At Gosport, the Union Navy , believing that several thousand militia were headed their way, evacuated and abandoned Norfolk, Virginia and the navy yard, burning and torching as many of the ships and facilities as possible.
That same day, the convention adopted an ordinance of secession , in which it stated the immediate cause of Virginia’s declaring of secession, “injury of the people of Virginia” and ”the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States”.
Historian Ed Ayers , who felt that “even Fort Sumter might have passed, however, had Lincoln not called for the arming of volunteers”, [39] wrote of the convention’s final decision:. The decision came from what seemed to many white Virginians the unavoidable logic of the situation: Virginia was a slave state; the Republicans had announced their intention of limiting slavery; slavery was protected by the sovereignty of the state; an attack on that sovereignty by military force was an assault on the freedom of property and political representation that sovereignty embodied.
When the federal government protected the freedom and future of slavery by recognizing the sovereignty of the states, Virginia’s Unionists could tolerate the insult the Republicans represented; when the federal government rejected that sovereignty, the threat could no longer be denied even by those who loved the Union. Virginia’s ordinance of secession was ratified in a referendum held on May 23, , by a vote of , to 37, The Confederate Congress proclaimed Richmond to be new capital of the Confederacy and Confederate troops moved into northern Virginia before the referendum was held.
The actual number of votes for or against secession are unknown since votes in many counties in northwestern and eastern Virginia where most of Virginia’s unionists lived were “discarded or lost. The reaction to the referendum was swift on both sides. Confederate troops shut down the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad , one of Washington City ‘s two rail links to Ohio and points west.
The next day, the U. Army moved into northern Virginia. With both armies now in northern Virginia, the stage was set for war. Francis Pierpont was elected governor. The restored government raised troops to defend the Union and appointed two senators to the United States Senate. During the summer of , parts of the northern, western and eastern Virginia, including the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, were returned to Union control. Norfolk returned to union control in May These areas would be administered by the Restored Government of Virginia, with the northwestern counties later becoming the new state of West Virginia.
Virginia’s strategic resources played a key role in dictating the objectives of the war there. Its agricultural and industrial capacity, and the means of transporting this production, were major strategic targets for attack by Union forces and defense by Confederate forces throughout the war.
Most importantly, Virginia brought with it a 54 year old U. Army Colonel: Robert E. Lee was offered a Union command on April 18, one day after Virginia’s effective secession, but he turned it down. Lee took up a Confederate army commission five days later, becoming a brigadier general.
Lee would prove to be one of the Confederate’s most valuable assets. The Confederacy’s need for war materiel played a very significant role in its decision to move its capital from Montgomery, Alabama to Richmond in May , despite its dangerous northern location miles south of the United States capital in Washington, DC.
It was mainly for this industrial reason that the Confederates fought so hard to defend the city. The capital of the Confederacy could easily be moved again if necessary, but Richmond’s industry and factories could not be moved. Richmond was the only large-scale industrial city controlled by the Confederacy during most of the Civil War. The city’s warehouses were the supply and logistical center for Confederate forces. The city’s Tredegar Iron Works , the 3rd largest foundry in the United States at the start of the war, produced most of the Confederate artillery, including a number of giant rail-mounted siege cannons.
Richmond’s factories also produced guns, bullets, tents, uniforms, harnesses, leather goods, swords, bayonets, and other war materiel. A number of textile plants, flour mills, brick factories, newspapers and book publishers were located in Richmond. Richmond had shipyards too, although they were smaller than the shipyards controlled by the Union in Norfolk, Virginia. With Virginia firmly under Union control, including the industrial centers of Richmond, Petersburg and Norfolk, the mostly rural and agricultural deep south lacked the industry needed to supply the Confederate war effort.
At the outbreak of the war Petersburg, Virginia was second only to Richmond among Virginia cities in terms of population and industrialization. The juncture of five railroads, it provided the only continuous rail link to the Deep South. Located 20 miles 32 km south of Richmond, its defense was a top priority; the day that Petersburg fell, Richmond fell with it.
In the western portion of the state as defined today , the Shenandoah Valley was considered the “Breadbasket of the Confederacy”.
The Blue Ridge mountains and similar sites had long been mined for iron, and though as the war progressed, shortages in manpower limited their production. In southwest Virginia, the large salt works at Saltville provided a key source of salt to the Confederacy, essential in preserving food for use by the army. It was the target of two battles. The first and last significant battles of the war were held in Virginia, the first being the First Battle of Bull Run and the last being the Battle of Appomattox Courthouse.
From May to April , Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy. The first major battle of the Civil War occurred on July 21, Union forces attempted to take control of the railroad junction at Manassas for use as a supply line, but the Confederate Army had moved its forces by train to meet the Union. The Confederates won the First Battle of Bull Run known as “First Battle of Manassas” in southern naming convention and the year went on without a major fight. Union general George B.
McClellan was forced to retreat from Richmond by Robert E. Lee ‘s army. Union general Pope was defeated at the Second Battle of Manassas. Following the one-sided Confederate victory Battle of Fredericksburg. When fighting resumed in the spring of , Union general Hooker was defeated at Chancellorsville by Lee’s army.
Ulysses Grant ‘s Overland Campaign was fought in Virginia. The campaign included battles of attrition at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor and ended with the Siege of Petersburg and Confederate defeat. More Civil War battles were fought in Virginia than any other state. From the American Revolution to the Civil War , the hallowed grounds where these battles were fought offer insight into not only Virginia history, but American history.
Tour a few of these notable National battlefields below, then view all battlefields to continue learning about Virginia’s war-torn history.
Today, Appomattox Court House National Historic Park offers guided walking tours of the property and the reconstructed structures that stood on the property during the war, including the McLean House, where Grant and Lee met to sign the surrender terms.
December 29, Travel Tips. Before Union Maj. Pope could call for back up, Confederate leader General Robert E. Lee advanced. With this assault, Confederate Lt. Jackson and Confederate Lt. Longstreet proved their mettle. At this site, Confederate Brig. Author Mary Ann Eckberg Originally from Nebraska, Mary Ann Eckberg is a writer, a dreamer, an animal rescue softie, a laundry ninja, a football fanatic, and a cupcake connoisseur.