Parker's Battery: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Richmond National Battlefield
Sams C and Brown NJ. 2026. Parker's Battery: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Richmond National Battlefield. Cultural Landscapes Inventory Report. 300100. National Park Service. NPS Northeast Regional Office, Boston, Massachusetts / CRIS-CL Database
Parker’s Battery is one of twelve units of Richmond National Battlefield Park (NBP) in Virginia. The park preserves, protects, interprets, and commemorates Richmond Civil War battlefield landscapes, struggles for the capital of the Confederacy associated with the 1862 Seven Days’ Battles, the 1864 Overland Campaign, and the 1884-1865 Richmond and Petersburg Campaigns, including the American military, social, and political history as exemplified by the New Market Heights Battlefield. A portion of the property was initially conserved in 1928 and was included in the establishment of the national park in 1936. Parker’s Battery was constructed as part of the 1864 Howlett Line, which stretched south from the James River to the Appomattox River, following the retreat of the Union army to Bermuda Hundred to the south. The artillery unit known as Parker’s Battery had been fighting together since 1862 and engaged in battles at Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Knoxville, Spotsylvania, North Anna, and Cold Harbor. Thus in 1864 when the 120 officers and men were stationed to a fixed position along the Howlett Line, it came as welcome relief. The Howlett Line enabled the Confederates to hold the Federal Army at a stalemate on the Bermuda Hundred Peninsula from 1864-1865. The 10-acre Parker’s Battery property is located approximately 10 miles down the James River from Richmond, Virginia, between the river and Interstate Route 95. The site includes the earthen fieldwork remains of Parker’s Battery and part of the Howlett Line, a memorial marker, a pedestrian interpretive trail with waysides, and visitor parking. Maintained lawns surround the parking area, while a major power line looms overhead. Woodlands dominate the majority of the site, including the earthwork remnants.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Sams, Cheryl; Brown, Nancy
- Date of Issue
- 2026
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- NER , RICH
- Keywords
- Archeology, Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, Battery, Battlefield, Battles In The North And South, Civilian Conservation Corps, Commemoration, Conservation, defense, Earthworks, Engineering, Fortification, Freeman Marker, Historic Preservation, historic site, Leisure, Marker, Military, monument, Recreation, Richmond, The Civil War, The New Deal, The South, United Daughters of the Confederacy, Virginia