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1864 Overland Campaign the Battle Rural Plains

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1864 Overland Campaign the Battle Rural Plains We picked a quantity of straw-berries, and as the [Shelton] family had no coffee, tea nor sugar, we procured some for them, and had a fine supper at a table, like civilized persons, for a novelty. The family were refined and educated, and were very affable when they found we 'Yankees' were.. civilized beings, and treated them kindly, but we found them rank rebels. -Robert Robertson, Union staff officer (staff of Colonel Nelson Miles), May 30, 1864 Above: The earliest known and previously unpublished view of Rural Plains is this May 1864 Overland The Battle Rural Plains 1864 sketch by combat artist Alfred Waud. When the contending armies left the Francis Barlow's division of the One hundred and ten years before Park staff discovered the image in the Campaign North Anna battlefield on May 27, Second Corps arrived here on May the contending Civil War armies collections of the Library of Congress. 1864, they moved closer to Richmond. 29. The men found Sarah Shelton collided here, patriot and orator After crossing the Pamunkey River and most of her children-ranging Patrick Hemy married Sarah Preserving the site's many resources at two locations about five miles in age from 14 to 35- at the house Shelton, of this house. Family legend and making them available to the northeast of here, the Union army and determined to stay there. Col. maintains that the wedding occurred public is a multi-layered and ongoing pushed forward on May 29 to the Edwin Shelton, her husband, was on in the parlor on the northwest side process. Emergency repairs to the banks of Totopotomoy Creek. It found the Confederate side of the creek and of the main floor. Henry grew to house have stabilized it. Historic the Confederate army entrenched could not return. Union signalmen manhood in this county. He delivered structures analysis and archeology on the southern side of the creek, climbed onto the roof to direct their his legendary "Give me liberty or give continue to provide new information blocking the direct route to Richmond. artillery. Incoming Confederate fire me death!" speech in Richmond in about the site's history. The National Over the course of four days the hit the house at least fifty times, but 1775. Park Service is honored to operate opposing sides skirmished, probed, the Sheltons stayed in their basement. Rural Plains as a critical stop for and maneuvered for position. Barlow's men eventually built strong Built in about 1723, the house anyone touring the 1864 Overland earthen entrenchments just west and remained in the Shelton family Campaign, bridging the frequently south of the house. They brought in continuously for more than 280 years. overlooked gap between the North The final generation of Sheltons North Ptursb field cannon and even a few mortars. Anna and Cold Harbor battlefields. For a time Maj. Gen. Winfield S. sold the home and nearly 125 0<D LO Kilometu1 Visit www.nps.gov/rich f-------'--i Union and Confederate positions along acres to the Totopotomoy 0 IOMJICI Hancock,commanderoftheSecond for information about Corps, made his headquarters beneath Totopotomoy Creek, May 30, 1864. Battlefield at Rural special programs and Ulysses S. Grant's 1864 the eastern porch of the house. Plains Foundation in Overland Campaign began three of his four brigades across the 2001. The Foundation events at Rural Plains with the Battle of the Late on May 30, Barlow's division creek for a short time. The two days of donated the house and and throughout Wilderness and continued attacked. Col.John R. Brooke's fighting in front of the Shelton House land to Richmond Richmond National through Spotsylvania, North Battlefield Park. Anna, Totopotomoy Creek, brigade pushed down the slope and cost Barlow about 300 casualties and National Battlefield Cold Harbor, and on to across the creek in this vicinity under produced no conclusive results. By Park in 2006, Petersburg. Unlike some fire. It drove off a line of Confederate June 1, Ulysses Grant began to extend thus ensuring that earlier campaigns, this was defenders, losing more than one ,his army's line southward toward Cold countless generations part of a coordinated surge hundred men in the endeavor, before ·Harbor, permanently abandoning the of interested visitors all across the South. Generals Barlow, Hancock, Birney, and pulling back toward the Shelton House Totopotomoy Creek battlefield. will have access to the Left: Fannie Shelton was one Gibbon in the field near Cold Harbor, in the darkness. The following day historic property. of several family members who Virginia, 1864. (Library of Congress) stayed in the basement of the Barlow renewed his advance, getting house during the battle. (NPS) Richmond National Battlefield Stop #1 Totopotomoy Creek runs a grandchild of Colonel Edwin Shelton, Park maintains nearly 125 acres of 650 yards in front of you, to the west. the wartime owner of "Rural Plains." The battlefield landscape here. When the Union army arrived here on slave cemetery, undoubtedly somewhere May 29, 1864, Confederate skirmishers on the property, has not yet been located. This walking trail covers almost fell back through these fields to their two miles roundtrip and visits defenses beyond the creek. Northern Stop #4 A small line of entrenchments some of the key sites. Each stop is soldiers immediately began to fortify. is visible here on either side of the trail, marked by numbered posts in the The following day a long line of artillery representing an advanced Union position, ground. positions stretched through the yard of probably a line of skirmishers. The creek "Rural Plains," the cannon dueling back is 300 yards ahead. Most of this slope The trail can be shortened to and forth across the creek with their foes. had no trees in 1864. The Union attacks approximately one mile by omitting The proximity of the guns to the main of May 30 and May 31 both surged down stops 4 through 6 and turning left at house helps explain why it was hit so this hill to the creek. the T after stop #3 to return to the many times by incoming Confederate fire. house and parking area. Immediately to your rigl1t stood a cluster Stop #5 Confederate riflemen swept of houses occupied by the Shelton the valley ofTotopotomoy Creek during family slaves. Those buildings are visible the Union attacks here on May 30 and Where to Start on the left side of the sketch that can May 31. The hill actually is too steep be seen on the front masthead of this for a truly effective defense, and on both 7 he tour begins in the open field brochure. During the battle one of the days the blue-coated infantry managed to just southwest of the house. From Union artillery limber chests, placed in wade across the creek, scale the heights, the parking area, pass by the white the shelter of the buildings, exploded and temporarily capture the opposite picket gate and follow the drive with tremendous violence, killing and hill, driving off the defenders. It was a around to the other side of the wounding several Union soldiers. As you remarkable feat. Somewhere near here, on house. Stop # 1 is beyond the end of move south to Stop #2, you are walking what he described as "that open, exposed the hedge row to your left. parallel to the Union line of fortifications, slope," the diarist Robert Robertson fell most of which have disappeared. badly wounded while supervising part of the May 31 advance. Stop #2 A portion of the original Union You are welcome to continue across the defenses is visible here. The 2nd Corps creek on the footbridge. That ground is brigade of Nelson Miles built this line, not National Park Service property. There mostly on May 30, 1864. Lieutenant is a very steep trail, without any signs or Below: From an upstairs window Robert Robertson, a Union staff officer, numbered markers, but excellent examples o" the Shelton House, combat described this in his diary: "It was difficult of the Confederate entrenchments survive artist Alfred Waud documented to keep the men at work under the galling the opening shots of the battle on the opposite side. The final stop on this on May 29. This is a detail of his fire which the rebels kept up. They would walking tour (Stop #6) is back up the trail, sketch which depicts the landscape cast up a shovel full of dirt and then lie closer to the house. before you as you approach Stop #1 . down in the wheat until the bullets which (Library of Congress) the throwing up of the earth attracted had passed over, then resuming their labor. Stop #6 Because Totopotomoy Creek This delayed the work of intrenching makes a 90 degree bend, so too did until a bank had been thus raised high the Union defenses. Here they face enough to afford a partial protection ...." south. Positions for more than a dozen The men of Miles's brigade climbed over cannon existed here; today only a small these entrenchments and moved toward piece of the original line survives from the creek as part of the attack on May what must have been a formidable sight 31, eventually returning to this line later in 1864. On the evening of May 30 that day. those guns "commenced a deafening cannonade, and we at once advanced over the breastworks," wrote Lieutenant Stop #3 The family cemetery was Robertson. Darkness soon halted the here, between the opposing lines. This advance. The following morning another probably is where many generations of attack began from here. This ground was Sheltons were buried, perhaps stretching open and treeless in 1864.
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