"ACW battlefields" Topic

Hi. Starting to plan a trip across the best of the us battlefields for the acw/american revolution. I plan to stick to the east side, possibly starting out from Washington. any suggestions? I'm looking for well organised sites not ones I might need to follow a map and compass with!

I just did a visit back there and as well as Gettysburg I would suggest you take a morning to visit Ball's Bluff.

It's quite a small battlefield with a guided tour (volunteer – no fee). I had read up on the battle and studied the maps, however, I was not prepared for the slope of actual bluff.

Antietam is an absoulute must!

Also just south from there is Harpers Ferry.

Plenty of sites around Richmond-Petersburg and Fredericksburg-Chancellorsville-Wilderness-Spotsylvania are all on the way to Richmond.

Kim

You will need to rent a car and get lots of maps. Start near D.C. with Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, skip Wilderness/Spotsylvania/Cold Harbor because they would be hard to navigate for you, then go to Gettysburg & Antietam. Most of the National Parks battlefields have visitor centers and they are on Facebook so you send questions directly to individual Parks you want to visit. Without following a battle map many preserved fields (except the ones above) do NOT have good signage. Even stating this… you may still feel a bit lost if you are some place that has fewer signs and roadside maps. Some have a LOT (like Gettysburg) and some much less (Chancellorsville) but better than Wilderness which has very few and that's being generous.

AWI battle fields have very few in general. You'll have to travel pretty far to get to some of the better ones without good knowledge of the fighting on those fields. And by travelling I'm talking about 3-7 hours away from D.C.

Fredericksburg, Wilderness, Chancellorsville, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg.

manassas is a must, not a huge site but more than worth a visit i'd say!

I imagine you will want to hit Gettysburg, which is just up the road from Antietam, which is just up the road from Harpers Ferry.

We are not well served by AWI battelfields and, unless I am mistaken, it will be difficult to combine the two for an enjoyable experience.

AWI Battlefields worth seeing:

Guilford Court House and King's Mountain.

Both are down South though.

As far as the AWI goes, forget Trenton. The battlefield is now mostly occupied by ghetto, and the marker is on a small plot of land in the middle of some less-than-desireable-neighborhood space. The local PD actually reccomended that we not visit there except in broad daylight, and preferably with a couple of them escorting us. Sheesh!

Yorktown is worth a visit and is right next to Colonial Williamsburg. They are not too far from the Richmond battlefields.

The best Civil War museum in Virginia, and an important battlefield site (where the Federals finally broke Lee's lines at Petersburg and triggered his retreat to Appomattox) is Pamplin Park. It is adjacent to Petersburg National Battlefield Park. Be sure to enquire ahead if it is open the day you plan to be there.

Several museums and buildings there including the best Civil War combat movie.

For AWI, Monmouth is just a bit far away, and Stoney Point, Saratoga, Lexington & Concord battlefields are much farther away.

Visiting Brandywine and Germantown battlefields is a bit difficult because those areas are well built-up.

The winter encampments of Valley Forge and Morristown are well interpreted by large National Parks.

I second what Dan said above…Pamplin Park is impressive compared to other sites. I wonder if its because Pamplin is privately owned. not controlled by the National Park Service?

The Brandywine Battlefield is nice and if you go farther north Saratoga is wonderful along with Fort Ticonderoga.

'The battlefield is now mostly occupied by ghetto, and the marker is on a small plot of land in the middle of some less-than-desireable-neighborhood space.'

Yeah…the Hessians just RUINED that town.

Pamplin Park is great. As someone who has lived and worked in the DC area, I think you are trying to do too much.
Visit Manssass, Antietam, Gettysburg, and if you have time Appomattox court house. That's my two cents.

Thank you all for your very helpful insight. That helps my planning immensely. To fuel my enthusiasm, and keep me busy till I get there, I just have the small matter of 700 Foundry AND Perry metal ACW Figures to get painted up!

I agree with ironicon ….less is more, you will appreciate the time spent at manassas, Antietam, Gettysburg

I washighly impressed with Vicksburg, if you get that far.

two of the most impressive battlefields (for me) have to be Shiloh and Chickamauga …excellent sites, good interpretation and preservation

Manassas/Bull Run is a good field to visit because 1) it's two battles in one, and 2) the park itself is very much like it was at the time. There are very few monuments to mar the landscape, though they tried their darnedest with the "Stonewall" statue. Harpers Ferry is definitely worth the trip, as it is a preserved town that provides the look and feel of a 19th century town with few modern intrusions. Sharpsburg is a stones' throw away, so visiting both together is a given.

Inside the DC area, you can visit Fort Stevens, Fort Ward, and Arlington National Cemetery and Arlington House (Lee-Custis Mansion). And of course Ford's Theater and the house where Lincoln died are preserved downtown.

If you make it down to the Virginia Tidewater, and the Hampton area, you can visit Yorktown, Williamsburg, and Jamestown in a day apiece. Nearby is the Mariner's Museum with the restoration project on the USS Monitor, and the largest single fortification in the U.S. Fortress Monroe.

All of those are less than 3 hours from each other, especially if you are traveling in the off-season.

I would concentrate on Antietam and Gettysburg, even if you take more than one day at each. Maybe Manassas if possible. Keep it simple.

Gettysburg needs at least a day …though if you spent two or three at the place …you wouldn't waste an hour of it and still leave more to see

If you're starting from Washington, DC and headed out 270 toward Antietam and/or Gettysburg…take a few minutes to check out the Monocacy Battlefield…just outside Frederick, Maryland.

nps.gov/mono/index.htm

If you are going to Gettysburg and/or Antietam, I highly recommend getting William A. Frassanito's books

Gettysburg: A Jouney in Time
link
Antietam: The Photographic Legacy of America's Bloodiest Day
link
You can get a used book cheap.

What he has done is take all the period photographs from the days after the battle and locate where they were taken on the current landscape and map them so you can stand where the camera did facing the same direction.

In the Antietam book he has even found photos of soldiers buried in the Antietam battle cemetery. You can find their gravestones.

I spent several wonderful and at times erie days walking the two battlefields with the books, finding various locations Frassanito had mapped out.

There are several youtube videos about Frassanito's work. Here is one:

YouTube link

Antietam is also my favorite site. I love that they have limited the battlefield monuments to help keep the battlefield clear of clutter that can be "seen". Standing in the sunken road and looking at the photographs of the confederate dead from a book held in my hand and knowing I am standing on the exact spot where the bodies were laying was quite haunting.