The Manassas Battlefield National Park contains most of the sites of the First and Second Bull Run battlefields from the Civil War. In the South the battles are caleld First and Second Manassas. Fought almost a year apart the two battles were Confederate victories.
I visited the battlefield last week and took a lot of photos. Looking at the Deep Cut portion it looks like the National Park Service is restoring the site back to what it looked like in 1862. This is a photo from Yahoo maps showing that part and it is heavily tree covered, which it wasn't when the Union and Confederate troops fought there.
The memorial is in the center with the cleared path leading to it.
This is a photo I took last weekend up to the memorial. You can see that it is now cleared land. This is what it would have looked like to Union troops attacking up the rise towards the railroad bed where the memorial is located.
The trees are all gone. I don't know if this is deliberate or they had a fire. I think it is planned as at another part of the cut they are cutting down all of the trees that have grown up in it. In 1862 the cut, despite the railroad construction being abandoned, was clear. The Confederate troops under Stonewall Jackson used it as a natural trench.
Good for the National Park Service as it is always good to see history as it was when it happened.
No comments:
Post a Comment