BAY, RIVER, AND VALLEY: HOW VIRGINIA'S GEOLOGY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY IMPACTED CAMPAIGNS AND BATTLES IN THE CIVIL WAR

Virginia’s geology and physiography were key influences on the campaigns and battles in the eastern theater of the American Civil War. Both Union and Confederacy realized early on that the war had to be won in the east, and that meant subjugating Virginia first and foremost. Consequently Federal armies invaded the state repeatedly, and three great geomorphic features – the Chesapeake Bay, the Rappahannock River, and Shenandoah Valley – became crucial battle areas. From early 1862 on, the Union Navy controlled the bay and its wide estuaries, the latter constituting unbreakable highways into the Virginia interior. Major Union operations, such as McClellan’s 1862 Peninsula Campaign, used these waterways in flanking attempts to capture Richmond from the southeast. The Piedmont provided excellent marching and fighting ground for Northern attacks on the Confederate capital. Southeastward-flowing Piedmont rivers, however, provided natural lines of defense for Rebel armies. The strongest of these, the Rappahannock-Rapidan line, forced the North into a series of bloody battles – Fredericksburg (1862), Chancellorsville (1863), and the Wilderness (1864) – before Grant and the Army of the Potomac at last broke through. Finally, the Shenandoah Valley offered an obvious corridor of movement for both sides, but favored the Confederates because its northeast strike led Southern armies deep into the Northern heartland. Stonewall Jackson’s classic 1862 Valley Campaign is a superb example of a creative commander making maximum use of the regional topography to confuse and defeat his foes.