Investigating our earthworks

Historian Kris White came to Stevenson Ridge lately to help investigate a mystery behind our earthworks.






One of the things that makes Stevenson Ridge such a historic property are the Civil War earthworks that wind through our woods. The National Park Service has called them the best-preserved privately owned earthworks in the region.

But there’s a mystery behind them: They face in the wrong direction!

For most people, it might be hard to tell. After all, most earthworks look like nothing more than humps of dirt bulging up from the ground in a long line. But most earthworks also have a ditch on one side or the other. The soldiers stood in those ditches, behind their big mounds of dirt, for protection.

Based on the location of the two armies in May of 1864, the Union army should have been facing toward the west and south. However, our trenches face toward the northeast—whoops!

Our historian, Chris, has been wondering about that lately. He has started to map the earthworks and our trails using a GPS system. But because the earthworks are facing the wrong direction, he’s trying to figure out why.

For help, he called in his friend and co-author, Kris White. They’ve written a book about the battle of Spotsylvania Court House called A Season of Slaughter. According to Chris, “No one I know knows how to figure out a piece of ground better than Kris.”

So Chris and Kris went pounding through the woods the other day on a mission to solve the mystery. “It’ll take some research,” says Kris.

I’ll keep you posted!