BGuthrie Photos: VA -- Richmond Natl Battlefield Park -- Fort Harrison Visitor Center

VA -- Richmond Natl Battlefield Park -- Fort Harrison Visitor Center:

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[1] FTHARV_140629_001.JPG	[2] FTHARV_140629_005.JPG	[3] FTHARV_140629_009.JPG
[4] FTHARV_140629_013.JPG	[5] FTHARV_140629_017.JPG	[6] FTHARV_140629_024.JPG
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[13] FTHARV_140629_055.JPG	[14] FTHARV_140629_058.JPG	[15] FTHARV_140629_069.JPG
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[19] FTHARV_140629_082.JPG	[20] FTHARV_140629_085.JPG	[21] FTHARV_140629_089.JPG
[22] FTHARV_140629_092.JPG	[23] FTHARV_140629_097.JPG	[24] FTHARV_140629_103.JPG
[25] FTHARV_140629_108.JPG	[26] FTHARV_140629_114.JPG	[27] FTHARV_140629_117.JPG
[28] FTHARV_140629_128.JPG	[29] FTHARV_140629_131.JPG	[30] FTHARV_140629_134.JPG
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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. FTHARV_140629_005.JPG: After the War: The government made no early effort to protect the Richmond area's many battlefields. The first preservation of any kind, initiated in the 1920s, occurred here at Fort Harrison. A group of local enthusiasts purchased the fort at auction. Later they expanded their area holdings while adding portions of Cold Harbor and the Seven Days battlefields. In the 1930s the Civilian Conservation Corps operated a camp here. The workers built various roads, opened trails, erected informational signs, and made these sites accessible to the American people. The National Park officially opened in 1944. Today the entrenchments that stretch from Route 5 southward to the James River are monuments to the soldiers and what they did here, perhaps more effective and revealing than if they had erected granite markers to commemorate their actions.
2. FTHARV_140629_009.JPG: The CCC baseball team, photographed in 1936
3. FTHARV_140629_017.JPG: Richmond Defenses: Between September 29, 1864, and April 3, 1865, the ground around Fort Harrison saw constant activity -- 187 consecutive days of trench life, with all its dangers and tension. Simultaneous operations to the south around Petersburg often affected what happened here. Photographs and exhibits in this gallery help tell that story. From the war's beginning, Confederate authorities struggled with the question of how to defend Richmond. It lay vulnerable to approaches from every direction. Engineers eventually devised an integrated series of earthen fortifications. The Exterior Line nearly encircled the city. Portions of that line survive today, here at Fort Harrison, at the Richmond airport, at Chickahominy Bluff, and elsewhere on private property. Behind you, on your right, you may begin experiencing the history of Fort Harrison.
4. FTHARV_140629_028.JPG: Autumn Drama: Benjamin F. Butler, commander of the Army of the James, devised a new plan to threaten or even capture Richmond. Before dawn on September 29, two powerful columns crossed the James River. One struck the Confederate defenses atop New Market Heights; the other aimed straight for Fort Harrison, the largest fortification in the area. United States Colored Troops captured New Market Heights while Fort Harrison fell after a bitter fight. Confederate leaders patched together further resistance, defeating both Union columns later in the day at Fort Gilmer, Fort Gregg, and Fort Johnson. General Lee, angry at the loss of Fort Harrison, launched an unsuccessful counterattack against the fort the next day. Butler's army retained a firm foothold here for the rest of the war. Combined losses in the two days of fighting numbered 5,000. This visitor stands in the heart of the battlefield.
5. FTHARV_140629_035.JPG: Combat artist William Waud sketched the dramatic scene when Confederate attackers attempted to retake Fort Harrison.
6. FTHARV_140629_044.JPG: Did You Know? Many soldiers in both armies called this area Chaffin's Farm, often misspelled as Chapin's Farm, in reference to Mrs. Susan Chaffin, whose large farm stood one mile west of here.
7. FTHARV_140629_047.JPG: July 1864: * 11-12 -- Confederate force under Jubal Early threatens Washington. * 20-22 -- Heavy fighting outside of Atlanta, Georgia. * 27-28 -- The First Battle of Deep Bottom occurs below Richmond. * 30 -- The Battle of the Crater east of Petersburg. August 1864: * 14-20 -- The Second Battle of Deep Bottom occurs below Richmond. * 18-21 -- The Battle of the Weldon Railroad west of Petersburg. September 1864: * 2 -- The Union army captures Atlanta. * 8 -- George B. McClellan is nominated as Democratic candidate for president. * 19 -- The Third Battle of Winchester in the Shenandoah Valley. * 22 -- The Confederate army in the Shenandoah Valley defeated at the Battle of Fisher's Hill. * 29-30 -- The Battle of Fort Harrison. Did You Know? The Fort Harrison National Cemetery (half a mile east of the fort) contains the remains of hundreds of Union soldiers who died in battle or from sickness here.
8. FTHARV_140629_052.JPG: Protecting the Capital City: Immediately after Virginia seceded in April 1861, local authorities began construction of earthen fortification to guard Richmond. R.E. Lee increased the tempo in June 1862, ordering extensive labor that briefly earned him the derisive nickname "King of Spades." By 1864 Richmond had become the second-most heavily fortified city in the Civil War, behind only Washington. While the armies grappled for control of the railroads at Petersburg that summer, Grant established a toehold north of the James and twice tested the city's defenses: at First Deep Bottom in July, and at Second Deep Bottom in August. Neither probe produced a decisive result, but together they added nearly 5,000 casualties to the war's cost. A larger effort in September triggered the fighting here at Fort Harrison. "Our people are opposed to work. Our troops, officers, community and press. All ridicule and resist it... There is nothing so military as labour, and nothing so important to an army as to save the lives of its soldiers." -- R.E. Lee
9. FTHARV_140629_058.JPG: In Perspective: The capture of Fort Harrison did not produce any direct result on the course of the war, but it was an important link in a chain of ultimately decisive events. Within a six week period, Union troops occupied Atlanta, won three major victories in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and captured the largest fort in Richmond's defenses (Fort Harrison). Riding a wave of victories, Abraham Lincoln easily won reelection in November, effectively destroying Confederate hopes of a negotiated peace. The events around Fort Harrison illustrated a large national trend. How the war was fought, and who was fighting it, had evolved since 1862. Fortifications constructed years earlier, for emergency use in the distant future, had become the last line of Confederate defense. United States Colored Troops found ample opportunity on these battlefields, too, reflecting their increasing importance in military operations: by war's end nearly one-fifth of a million men, many of them former slaves, had joined the army.
10. FTHARV_140629_069.JPG: The Final Winter: THe winter of 1864-65 saw increasing war weariness among the defenders of Richmond. The complete failure of an unrealistic peace-seeking delegation early in 1865 deflated spirits. Widespread desertions along these lines further eroded the Confederates' ability to resist whenever the Spring 1865 campaign commenced. By April 1, the Confederate army covered approximately 35 contiguous miles, from east of Richmond to Five Forks, southwest of Petersburg. Petersburg fell on April 2, before the Richmond lines could be tested. Union soldiers from here were the first men into the capital city on the morning of April3, securing the long-coveted prize. Their timely arrival provided manpower to help extinguish the raging fires in the city -- fires that had spread beyond control after being set by Confederate authorities to destroy a handful of military objectives in Richmond during the abandonment of the capital. "Everything looks sad and gloomy at this time in and around Richmond. [A] great many people has become dispondent..." -- Samuel S. Watson, 1st Texas Infantry, February 1865
11. FTHARV_140629_077.JPG: Tools of War: Virginia battlefields in 1864 and 1865 frequently bore little resemblance to the uncluttered openness familiar from places like Manassas (Bull Run) or Malvern Hill. Not only had entrenchments evolved into sophisticated fortresses, but obstructions and impediments usually screened the fortifications. Armies relied heavily on mortars to lob shells on a high arc over the fortifications. Felled trees and sharpened stakes clogged the direct approaches. Primitive land mines, sprinkled in front of Richmond's defenses, inaugurated a new species of impersonal warfare still controversial in the 21st century. Military landscapes typical in World War One would have looked familiar to men who had served around Fort Harrison in 1865.
12. FTHARV_140629_079.JPG: Coehorn Mortar: This weapon was ideal for the style of fighting that followed the Federal occupation of Fort Harrison. The Coehorn mortar could send a 17-pound shell high over defensive works and reach the troops protected behind them. On October 2, 1864, Southern artillerists opened mortar fire on Federal soldiers improving the defenses of Fort Harrison. By the end of the day, 40 men had been killed and many more wounded.
13. FTHARV_140629_082.JPG: Section View of Replica Landmine: Confederates utilized sub-terra shells (landmines) to bolster Richmond's defenses following the capture of Fort Harrison. They consisted of condemned artillery projectiles buried in the ground. Each had a sensitive primer designed to detonate the shell in reaction to a more seven pounds of pressure. On October 29, 1864, Confederate Brigadier General Gabriel Rains wrote: "... we have planted 600 in front of our works and sixty more yesterday... mostly around Fort Gilmer and near Battery Harrison..."
14. FTHARV_140629_085.JPG: Replica 100-Pounder Parrott Shell: Rifled artillery utilized grooves inside the barrel that spun the projectile, giving the cannon a much greater range and accuracy than smoothbore artillery. At nearby Fort Brady, the Federals employed 100-pounder Parrotts that could fire artillery rounds, such as this 80 pound shell, almost four miles.
15. FTHARV_140629_089.JPG: To break this stalemate, imaginative inventors toyed with ideas with "stink bombs," "liquid fire," and even an airplane. The airplane, or "Bird of Art," as its leading proponent termed it, would be "a force that no defensive art on land, however solid, could withstand for even a single-day." He toured Confederate camps near Fort Harrison in the winter of 1864-65 in a vain effort to raise money for his device. 100-pounder Parrott at Fort Brady.
16. FTHARV_140629_092.JPG: The Confederate defenses west of Fort Harrison, with their water-filled moats and sweeping lines of sight, were nearly impregnable to frontal attack. Did You Know? Each side suspected the other of building tunnels near Fort Harrison, for the purpose of exploding the opposing lines with black powder. In truth, the Confederates actually did excavate a shaft for that purpose, but never completed it.
17. FTHARV_140629_097.JPG: Portable Bridges: Armies on the move relied on pontoon boats to span rivers and wide creeks. Transported on special wagons and strung together at crossing sites, they provided solid footing that enabled men, vehicles, cannon, and animals to negotiate otherwise impassable bodies of water. The Army of the James used pontoon bridges on September 29, 1864. The troops that attacked New Market Heights crossed at Deep Bottom, while those that aimed for Fort Harrison crossed at Aiken's Landing.
18. FTHARV_140629_103.JPG: Pontoon Boat Bridge model
19. FTHARV_140629_117.JPG: October 1864: * 19 -- A decisive battle at Cedar Creek ends the Shenandoah Valley Campaign. November 1864: * 8 -- The people re-elect Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States. "Our winter quarters were fully completed at this time, and we commenced a life of partial hibernation." -- Charles M. Clark, 39th Illinois Infantry "In rainy weather and when the weather was cold [our] green, wet pine wood made little else than smoke, and we nearly froze." -- John M. Cammack, 10th Virginia Heavy Artillery Battalion
20. FTHARV_140629_131.JPG: A Season of Change: September 28, 1864: Before the battle, a complicated web of defenses guarded Richmond' eastern approaches. The Union victory at Fort Harrison would force extensive changes.
21. FTHARV_140629_134.JPG: October 8, 1864: Union troops built a line northward from the river, beyond Fort Harrison (renamed Fort Burnham). The Confederates countered with a new line from Fort Johnson to Fort Hoke, but had to abandon their outer defenses north of there. November 1, 1864: Failed Federal offensives in late-October discovered the existence of a newly built line of Confederate defenses east of Richmond. Union engineers continued to expand their own fortifications, creating a stalemate.
22. FTHARV_140629_139.JPG: Tourism at the Fort: Fort Harrison became a military tourist attraction that winter. Two days after Thanksgiving nearly every senior Union officer in the vicinity visited the famous fort, including generals Grant, Meade, Butler, Warren, and Weitzel. A few days later the famous nurse Clara Barton rode into the fort and peered across at the Confederate lines, just 600 yards distant.
23. FTHARV_140629_142.JPG: Trench Warfare: The Battle of Fort Harrison produced changes in the military geography of central Virginia. The Army of the James built its own line of earthen entrenchments facing Richmond. Large forts sprung up all the way to Fort Brady on the James River. They connected to Union lines at Bermuda Hundred, between the James and Appomattox rivers, which themselves merged with the sprawling Federal position outside Petersburg. Outnumbered Confederates, already stretched uncomfortably thin, had to man dozens of miles of continuous defenses with unceasing vigilance. Three inconclusive battles outside Richmond in October tested the new situation: Darbytown Road on the 7th; Second Darbytown Road on the 13th; and Second Fair Oaks on the 27th. By November the opposing lines settled into static warfare. Misery in the trenches replaced the dangers of the battlefield. Soldiers remembered the final winter of the war here as one of mud, cold, and hunger. The tightening Federal grip on Richmond also caused shortages and suffering. "Day by day our wants and privations increased... The supply of provisions in the city of Richmond was altogether inadequate to the demand... Every fresh encroachment of the enemy increased this scarcity." -- Sallie Putnam
24. FTHARV_140629_145.JPG: The Medal of Honor: The fighting at New Market Heights and Fort Harrison produced many instances of individual valor. At least 42 officers and enlisted men received Medals of Honor as a result of their actions in the battles of September 29 and 30. There was no comparable award in the Southern army, and cases of personal heroism by individual Confederates largely went unrecognized.
25. FTHARV_140629_148.JPG: United States Colored Troops, like those seen here, accounted for one-third (14 of 42) of the Medals of Honor chronicled in the following pages.
26. FTHARV_140629_158.JPG: War Comes to Fort Harrison
27. FTHARV_140629_162.JPG: Faces of War: Thousands of soldiers died on Richmond's Civil War battlefields. Many of those men posed for photographs, anxious to preserve their image as a memento for their loved ones. That frozen moment in time offers us a window into our lives, too. Every soldier profiled in this interactive display was killed or mortally wounded here, or at one of the other area battlefields. Proud descendants have donated most of these views. Feel welcome to browse through, to learn the often poignant stories, and to see the faces of America's fighting men of the 1860s.
Wikipedia Description: Battle of Chaffin's Farm
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Battle of Chaffin's Farm, also known as New Market Heights and Fort Harrison, was fought September 29–September 30, 1864, as part of the Siege of Petersburg in the American Civil War.

Prelude:

The nature of warfare evolved dramatically during the final ten months of the Civil War. Static warfare in the trenches replaced the freewheeling mass movements of earlier campaigns. This began at Cold Harbor in June 1864 and the technique was used progressively southward to the series of battles around Petersburg. These affairs occasionally erupted into full-scale battles. The Battle of Chaffin's Farm is a particularly illustrative example of a late-war engagement.

From the very beginning of the war, Confederate engineers worked feverishly to build permanent defenses around Richmond. By 1864, they had created a system anchored south of the capital on the James River at Chaffin's Farm, a large open bluff named for a local resident. This outer line was supported by an intermediate and inner system of fortifications much closer to the capital.

The strength of these lines remained untested until September 1864 when Union General Ulysses S. Grant tried to capture Richmond or Petersburg by attacking simultaneously north and south of the James.

The Battle:

The attack north of the river occurred on September 29. Troops under Federal general Benjamin Butler launched attacks on two fronts. The Union X Corps advanced against New Market Heights north of Deep Bottom, while the XVIII Corps attacked Fort Harrison.

New Market Heights:

Major General David B. Birney moved the X Corps north from the Deep Bottom bridgehead toward the Confederate works atop New Market Heights manned by Brigadier General John Gregg. A brigade of U.S. Colored Troops attacked the heights but was repulsed. In this attack, Christian Fleetwood's actions would later earn him the Medal of Honor. Birney reinforced the assault force and stormed the heights again. Alfred H. Terry's division managed to turn the Confederate left flank, thus turning the tide of the battle. Word of Union success against Fort Harrison then reached Gregg, compelling him to pull Confederate troops back to Forts Gregg, Gilmer and Johnson.

Once Birney's troops had taken New Market Heights, the X Corps turned to the northwest along the New Market Road and moved against a secondary line of works guarding Richmond north of Fort Harrison. Brigadier General Robert S. Foster's X Corps division assaulted a small salient known as Fort Gilmer. David Birney's brother, Brigadier General William Birney, led a brigade of U.S. Colored Troops against Fort Gregg south of Fort Gilmer. These attacks were marked by heroism among the Colored Troops but were ultimately repulsed.

Fort Harrison:

At roughly the same time Birney's first attack moved forward, the Union XVIII Corps under Major General Edward Ord, assaulted Fort Harrison to the west of New Market Heights. Ord's assault was led by Brigadier General George Stannard, a veteran of Gettysburg. Stannard's men rushed across an open field and took cover in a slight depression just in front of the fort and, after a moment's rest, took the fort. The Confederate defenders broke to the rear, seeking refuge behind a secondary line. Brigadier General Hiram Burnham was killed during the attack; Union troops would rename the captured fort in his honor.

Once inside the fort, the Union attackers became disorganized. Stannard was wounded and all three of his brigade commanders were also wounded or killed. A supporting column under Brigadier General Charles Heckman veered far off to the north and was repulsed. Ord personally attempted to rally the troops to exploit their success, but he too fell with a critical wound. The loss of commanders and Confederate ironclads on the James put an end to the XVIII Corps' drive on Chaffin's Bluff along the James River.

Robert E. Lee realized the severity of the loss of Fort Harrison and personally brought 10,000 reinforcements under Brigadier General Charles Fields north from Petersburg. On September 30, Lee ordered a counterattack to retake Fort Harrison, now commanded by Major General Godfrey Weitzel, replacing the wounded Ord. The Confederate attacks were uncoordinated and were easily handled.

Results:

Just as Grant had anticipated, the fighting around Chaffin's Farm forced Lee to shift his resources and helped the Union army south of Petersburg win the Battle of Peebles' Farm. After October, the two armies settled into trench warfare that continued until the end of the war. The fighting around Chaffin's Farm cost the nation nearly 5,000 casualties.
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