Totopotomoy Creek Battlefield at Rural Plains: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Richmond National Battlefield Park
Hammond JW and Foulds E. 2026. Totopotomoy Creek Battlefield at Rural Plains: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Richmond National Battlefield Park. Cultural Landscapes Inventory Report. 975920. National Park Service. NPS Northeast Regional Office, Boston, Massachusetts / CRIS-CL Database
Totopotomoy Creek Battlefield at Rural Plains is located at 7273 Studley Road in Mechanicsville, Virginia, approximately nine miles northeast of Richmond. It is part of Richmond National Battlefield Park, which 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. The site became part of the park in 2006. The May 28-30, 1864, Battle of Totopotomoy Creek occurred as part of General Ulysses S. Grant’s 1864 Overland Campaign, and immediately preceded the May 31-June 12, 1864, Battle of Cold Harbor that ended the campaign. The battle saw the presence of Union soldiers on land owned by the Shelton family and included the construction of earthen fortifications extending to the south, southwest, and west of the Shelton House. These fortifications provided cover for Union infantry and artillery, which engaged their Confederate counterparts on the opposite side of Totopotomoy Creek. During the course of the battle, the house was used as a Union signal station, drawing fire from the Confederate artillery. Its basement hallway was used as a field headquarters by Union General Winfield S. Hancock, and Shelton family members sought refuge in the basement from the artillery bombardment. Despite being struck by more than fifty artillery shells, the house survived the battle, as did all the members of the Shelton family. The 124-acre Totopotomoy Creek Battlefield at Rural Plains occupies an upland knoll overlooking Totopotomoy Creek. Sited atop the knoll is the Shelton House, an architecturally significant dwelling built between 1724-1726. Other cultural features of the property include Union earthworks associated with the May 1864 Battle of Totopotomoy Creek, an early period agricultural outbuilding, access and farm roads, agricultural fields, remnants of a Shelton family burial ground, and ornamental trees and shrubs associated with a former ornamental nursery operation. The site is bounded by Studley Road on the north, Totopotomoy Creek on the west and south, and the Shelton Pointe residential subdivision on the east. To the south, the Bell Creek community occupies a knoll overlooking the creek. The adjacent Wysor property to the south includes an easement protecting surviving Confederate earthworks opposite the Union line on the Shelton property. Land north of Studley Road was formerly part of the Rural Plains property.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Hammond, John; Foulds, Eliot
- Date of Issue
- 2026
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- RICH
- Keywords
- Agriculture, Archeology-Historic-Non-Aboriginal, Architecture, Battle Site, Battles In The North And South, Commemoration, Developing the American Economy, Expressing Cultural Values, Farm (Plantation), Forest, Georgian (1730-1780), Horticulture Facility, Interpretive Landscape, Leisure-Passive (Park), Military, Other-Commemoration, Outdoor Recreation, Plantation Agriculture, Rural Plains, Shaping the Political Landscape, Single Family House, The Civil War, Totopotomoy Creek Battlefield, Vernacular Landscape