National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Richmond National Battlefield Park
Olausen SA, Kline LJ, Heitert K, Pineo G. 2018. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Richmond National Battlefield Park. National Park Service. The Public Archaeology Laboratory, Inc. (Pawtucket, RI)
Entry includes original documentation (1972) submitted for listing Richmond National Battlefield Park to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), as well as additional documentation (2018) accepted by the Keeper of the National Register. Initially conceived as a state park in 1932 following a series of land purchases by the Richmond Battlefield Park Corporation beginning in 1927, Richmond NBP was established by an act of Congress on May 2, 1936 (Public Law 49 Stat. 1155), accepted by the Department of the Interior on July 14, 1944, and administratively listed in the NRHP on October 15, 1966. Individual documentation for Rural Plains (NRIS #75002021) was signed by the Keeper of the National Register on June 5, 1975, prior to its acquisition by the National Park Service. The Richmond National Battlefield Park (NBP) Historic District (the District) comprises various discontiguous administrative units in and around the City of Richmond and Town of Mechanicsville, Virginia, within Henrico, Hanover, and Chesterfield counties. The District is associated with Union attempts to take the Confederate capital city of Richmond during the Peninsula Campaign in 1862, the Overland and Bermuda Hundred Campaigns in 1864, and the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign in 1864-1865. The majority of the contributing resources within the District are associated with battle events that occurred on the fields and wooded areas around Richmond contested in fierce engagements between the Union and the Confederacy. Most of the battlefields, particularly Cold Harbor, contain readily visible remnants of extensive systems of field fortifications that reflect the state of military tactics at the time of the Civil War and provide information about how the battles were fought. The District also contains portions of the lines of permanent fortifications that ringed the City of Richmond and protected it from Union capture until the end of the war. Other significant contributing resources include the Watt, Garthright, and Shelton ("Rural Plains") houses used as military headquarters and/or field hospitals during the Civil War and a series of commemorative markers colloquially known as Freeman markers placed around Richmond ca. 1925.
- Type
- Generic Document
- Authors
- Olausen, Stephen; Kline, Laura; Heitert, Kristen; Pineo, Gretchen
- Date of Issue
- 2018-04-04
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- RICH
- Keywords
- battlefield, buildings, Chesterfield, Civil War, commemoration, contributing resources, criteria, criterion, defense, domestic, earthworks, fortifications, Garthright, Hanover, Henrico, historic district, history, keeper, Mechanicsville, National Register, National Register of Historic Places, NRHP, objects, Overland Campaign, Peninsula Campaign, recreation and culture, registration form, Richmond, Richmond National Battlefield Park, Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, Rural Plains, Seven Days' Battle, Shelton, significance, sites, structures, Virginia, Watt