Richmond National
Battlefield Park
Richmond National Battlefield Park commemorates the importance of the city as the capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War. The park consists
of more than 30 American Civil War sites around Richmond, Virginia, including the sites of the battles of Malvern Hill, Gaines’ Mill, and Cold Harbor (all
sites of battles during the 1862 Seven Days Battles), and the Chimborazo Medical Museum at the former site of the Confederate hospital of the same name.
There is a Civil War visitor center at the old site of the Tredegar Iron Works, the South’s most important iron foundry which turned out crucial weaponry for the
Confederacy. A complete tour of the park involves an 80-mile drive.
The battle of Gaines’ Mill involved the heaviest fighting of the famous 1862 Seven Days’ Battles between General Robert E. Lee and Union General George McClellan,
in which Lee succeeded in repelling Federal forces away from Richmond, saving the capital and changing the course of the war. Malvern Hill, the last of these battles,
saw heavy losses for the Confederates, but ultimate victory in forcing a Union withdrawal.
The 1864 battle at Cold Harbor was part of an overall Union surge of troops all across the South, known as the Overland Campaign. This included the battles
of Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Petersburg. At Cold Harbor, Confederates successfully blocked Grant’s path to Richmond by building a six mile long massive
entrenchment, which was assailed by Union troops for two weeks. At the end of the battle, combined casualties for both sides were over 16,000. Although victorious in
the battle, the Confederates could ill afford such losses, and the army was eventually worn down by Grant’s continued assaults at Petersburg and Appomattox.
Gram and Pops visited here several times in the late 1990s.