Historical Landscape Study: Terrain of Cold Harbor Battlefield, June 1, 1864

Dickerson, Clifford

The Richmond National Battlefield Park commemorates 13 American Civil War sites around Richmond, Virginia, which served as the capital of the Confederate States of America for most of the war. The park connects certain features within the city with defensive fortifications and battle sites around it. The scope of this study is not intended to be one of the entire Cold Harbor Battlefield. Its primary purpose being to recreate the historical landscape of the two sites contained in Richmond National Battlefield Park's Cold Harbor unit, it focuses on those areas. Topographically, the terrain of the Cold Harbor unit of Richmond National Battlefield Park begins at the intersection of present-day Virginia State Routes 156 and 633. Route 156 winds southwesterly from this point, passing the Park's Garthright House and Cold Harbor units. To passersby the landscape over which the road runs is as deceptive now as it was in 1860. On the northern and southern sides of the pavement the earth rises and falls alternately in a gentle undulating manner resulting in three low ridges which follow a general northwesterly direction. Three lesser branches of Powhite Creek, a tributary of the Chickahominy River, pierce these elevations. Bloody Run cuts through the Cold Harbor unit 440 yards north of the visitor shelter while a second creek passes through Park property 1400 feet farther north. A third sluggish stream which is not part of the Park flows southwest in rear of the two-acre Garthright House unit

Historical Landscape Study: Terrain of Cold Harbor Battlefield, June 1, 1864

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