What is the most interesting and most strange about this battlefield is it's position now in the midst of the outgrowth of richmond. It sits at the top of the hill along the old Mechanicsville Turnpike road and is just west of the actual Chickahominy river.
My husband and sons pass this battlefield every day on their way to school and we live just north of where this battery was firing their shells, along the old road that was here when the war passed through. It is strange to live and work around such a historically rich area. I sometimes imagine if I just rewound history for about 150 years and sat watch these really moments of action and change what would I see? Whose faces would stand out? How shocked would I be at their similarities to us? I really wonder what they felt, saw, smelt, and experienced! On this place where I live now, but then was mostly unpopulated. Funny, I suppose I am just a history geek!
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| late summer 2010. |
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| From this angle the troops would shoot artillery off into that distance, it is at the top of a hill on the out skirts of Richmond and faces the Beaver dam creek where many Union soldier were killed from artillery from this hill. |
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| 150 year old trenches and defensive positions. |
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| more earth works! |
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| Trench and earth works on the edge of the Hill overlooking the chickahominy river. |
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| It may not look like it, but these earth works are the largest I have seen. You can really see how this was a heavily defended area because of its proximity to richmond. This was really the final defense when entering the city and the Union was unable to penetrate the city by this entrance, they came up from the south and into the city that way, across the James. |
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