Civil War in Virginia

Ambrose Bierce is credited with the sardonic comment, "War is God's way of teaching Americans geography..." More recent satire in the New York Times highlights how time and places can be juxtaposed.

The physical geography of Virginia affected where the armies marched, where they camped, and where they fought. The war made a lot of places in Virginia special, even "hallowed." Efforts to preserve the special places today reflect the geography of tourism.

Union troops marching through Mount Jackson in 1862
Union troops marching through Mount Jackson in 1862
Source: Frank Leslie's illustrated history of the Civil War (p.220)

On to Richmond in 1861

Map of the Virginia Railroads at the Start of the Civil War

After First Manassas

Yorktown in the Civil War

Site of Civil War Hospital in Mount Jackson, between Winchester and Staunton
Site of Civil War Hospital in Mount Jackson, between Winchester and Staunton
(most Civil War hospitals were in areas remote from fighting but near railroads,
which brought the wounded and supplies... but Mount Jackson was in the middle of the Shenandoah Valley battles in 1864)

Links

Bermuda Hundred earthworks, 1864






Confederate Cemetery - Manassas National Battlefield Park
(click on images for larger versions)


The Military in Virginia
Virginia Places