Parker's Battery Trail

McClellan’s Federals attacked in 1862, then Grant in ’64, while Joseph E. Johnston and then Robert E. Lee defended. The two major assaults on the Confederate capital fanned out in a series of battles, skirmishers and marches.

Tour the Battlefield

Among today’s suburbs remain traces of Richmond’s outer defenses-forts, rifle-pits, the fields where thousands died. Visit sites close by, or use the tour route to follow the entire sequence of attacks and counterattacks.

The Battles

Each site had its own lethal personality-troops lost in swamps, order misread, a last-minute bayonet charge. Both sides claimed some victories (with long lists of casualties). Richmond remained unconquered, but the Union Army was able to withdraw still healthy and numerous.

Parker’s Battery Trail

The ¼-mile trail winds through Confederate entrenchments and gun emplacements built during the last year of the war. Average hiking time: 15 minutes.

Marker can be reached from Ware Bottom Spring Road 0.1 miles east of Old Stage Road, on the right when traveling east.

Courtesy hmdb.org

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