I am always on the lookout for something fascinating to do or an interesting place to visit.  Themes from all the various assortment of things we've been studying float in my head, acting like a radar, looking for the next great activity or opportunity.  Last spring, I saw an announcement in the CW Newsroom that there would be a talk at the museum about the Civil War Battle of Williamsburg.  We were studying the Civil War, so a week after moving into our new house and unpacking boxes, I packed the kids up in the van and we went down to CW for the day.  However, I never once thought to look for a Battle of Williamsburg walking tour, as we did other walking tours of the Civil War Battlefields around Fredericksburg. My radar has been a wee bit occupied with settling into our new home. However, I have a friend  who is figuring us out!  Her radar was on!  She happened across a tidbit of information on a historical marker about the Battle of Williamsburg and e-mailed it to me, remembering that we attended the interesting slide show about it last May. 

     I checked out the link and found a series of markers. I assumed this meant there was a walking tour available, like the ones we took around Fredericksburg.  I could tell the markers were rather close, so I didn't think it would be much of a hike.  Since these are in Redoubt Park, I imagined playgrounds and picnic tables. I did like their creativity in naming the park something historical.  Well, the other day we drove to Redoubt Park to see the markers and what a surprise!

      Redoubt Park has no picnic tables. No barbeque pits. No playground equipment. Instead, we read a historical marker on Williamsburg in the Civil War....

...and another sign about Defending the Peninsula...

....then along a path we saw this sight coming into view...

where we read the next sign Redoubt 1...

....which was right next to the redoubt!

This Redoubt was built by the Confederate soldiers in the area, as a defense site for the oncoming march of the Union troops. Since the Confederate capital was in Richmond, the Union troops were trying to push south from Washington DC with no success.  Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee were in the way with their troops. So the Union commander got the idea to attack from the south, landing at Hampton and marching north to Richmond, this was called the Peninsular Campaign. If you look at a map, you'll see that Hampton, Newport News, Yorktown, Williamsburg and Jamestown are all towns in close proximity to each other in a peninsula. At the tip of the peninsula is the infamous Hampton Roads, which I'll discuss more in the next post. 

There was quite a bit of debate over whether to build this redoubt or not. Some thought it was an excellent age old idea of the past (redoubts date back to the Middle Ages).  Others thought it was an out dated idea.

This was a strategic position, as the Confederacy could have looked down from their redoubt to see the Union troops marching up Quarterpath Road.

You can barely see it beyond the redoubt.

 These redoubts are surrounded by deep ravines.

Here's another view of Quarterpath Road below.  

As the sign says, the Confederates did not take advantage of the situation, and the Union controlled Williamsburg for the rest of the war.

It was amazing seeing this incredible man made structure. The engineers can build these quite quickly. I asked General Washington about this one time during a Prelude to Victory Q&A. These can be built overnight.  There are also preserved redoubts at Yorktown, both from the American Revolution and the Civil War.  We haven't seen them yet, but we are anticipating that.  In fact, we learned all abaut the structure and use of redoubts in "Yorktown", one of the Electronic Field Trips from Colonial Williamsburg last year.  I downloaded excellent illustrations and information on redoubts and other military tactics from the EFT. Then we got to e-mail General Washington for more information. My daughter's question got an entire page in response from the General! It has helped us to understand battle strategy so much more, thereby making our history studies more interesting. Even though we learned about redoubts in the American Revolution, it enhanced our Civil War studies.  After all, here is a redoubt from the Civil War.  When we study the Middle Ages again, we'll be looking for these.    

     Be certain to take the virtual tour.  Here's a little information and pictures too. Even though this is technically a short tour, we spent an hour here, amazed by the technology, reflecting on the history and enjoying the tranquil woods.  My husband started asking a lot of questions and I filled him in the best I could.  I could sum up the entire experience in one word: Wow!  In fact, that's all I said...repeatedly!  My vocabulary is not usually so limited, but I was extremely overcome. Wow! I'm glad my friend's radar was on!