Holding the High Ground

Early on the morning of July 26th, 1814, Lieutenant-General Sir Gordon Drummond awaited another attack on the Lundy's Lane hill near Niagara Falls. Throughout the previous night, this hill had been taken and retaken in the bloodiest, most hard fought ...

The High Ground

Horseshoe Bend National Military Park

[The] high ground which extended about mid-way from the breastwork to the river was in some manner open, but the declivity and flat which surrounded it was filled with fallen timber, the growth of which was ...

Holding the High Ground

Today’s landscape makes it difficult to appreciate the many strengths of the Union position. The charging Confederates faced more obstacles than they could overcome: open fields, steep slopes, a broad and swampy creek, Union infantry using a millrace for protection, ...

A Place on the High Ground

Centreville Civil War Forts & Earthworks

In the fall of 1861, after their July defeat at Manassas (Bull Run), Union forces retreated to Washington, D.C. to organize and retrain. Confederate forces concentrated in Centreville to bolster their defense of Northern Virginia ...

Fight for the High Ground

The Shenandoah Valley's strategic location and rich farmland caused it to be the scene of two major Civil War campaigns that comprised hundreds of battles and skirmishes.

Many Valley farms, like Rose Hill, became battlefields or campgrounds unexpectedly and often repeatedly.

By ...