Gaines' Mill Battlefield: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Richmond National Battlefield Park
Layton T, Hammond J, Foulds H. 2024. Gaines' Mill Battlefield: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Richmond National Battlefield Park. Cultural Landscapes Inventory Report. 300095. National Park Service. NPS Northeast Regional Office, Boston, Massachusetts / CRIS-CL Database
Gaines’ Mill Battlefield is located approximately eight miles east-northeast of Richmond in Hanover County, Virginia.The 590-acre battlefield is part of Richmond National Battlefield Park, established in 1944 and now encompassing over 4,095 acres. The park commemorates 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. In addition to Gaines’ Mill Battlefield, the park’s sites include Beaver Dam Creek Battlefield, Chickahominy Bluff, Chimborazo, Cold Harbor Battlefield, Drewry’s Bluff, Fort Harrison, Glendale Battlefield, Malvern Hill Battlefield, Parker’s Battery, and Totopotomoy Creek Battlefield. Today, the Gaines’ Mill Battlefield cultural landscape includes the original 60.3-acre former Watt Farm property, which was first acquired by the Richmond Battlefield Parks Corporation in 1927 and then became part of Virginia’s first state park in 1932. The battlefield area includes the locations of the center and left of the Union line, which on June 27, 1862 was positioned along the edge and slope of the Watt House plateau, and areas of the approach of Confederate Generals James Longstreet’s and A.P. Hill’s divisions, as well as the point at which Gen. John B. Hood’s brigade broke through the Union line, ultimately compelling a Union retreat. Key resources within the landscape include the Watt House, which served as Union General Porter’s headquarters and then as a Union field hospital, and Boatswain Creek and its ravine, which was as a formidable natural obstacle utilized to advantage by Gen. Porter. The rural landscape also includes agricultural and domestic features from during and after the historic period, commemorative markers installed in the early twentieth century, and park visitor and administrative infrastructure developed from the 1930s onward.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Layton, Timothy; Hammond, John; Foulds, H Eliot
- Date of Issue
- 2024
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- NER , RICH
- Keywords
- Agriculture/Subsistence, And War Vehicles), Architecture, Battery (Defense), Battle Site, Battles In The North And South, Commemoration, Defense, Domestic (Residential), Education, Engineering, Expanding Science and Technology, Expressing Cultural Values, Farm (Plantation), Forest, Fortification, Gaines' Mill Battlefield, Historic Site, Historic-Non-Aboriginal Archeology, Interpretive Landscape, Landscape, Leisure-Passive (Park), Military, Military (Fortifications, Monument (Marker, Natural Area, Other, Outdoor Recreation, Plaque), Rail-Related Station (Depot), Recreation/Culture, Richmond National Battlefield Park, Shaping the Political Landscape, Single Family Dwelling, Single Family House, Springfield Plantation, Technology (Engineering and Invention), The Civil War, The Federal Government Enters The Movement, Transforming the Environment Historic Preservation, Transportation, Vernacular Architecture, Watt House, Weapons, Wetland.
- Subjects
- CRIS-CL: 300095: Gaines' Mill