Forever farmland at the Battle of Piedmont

Drone capture of the rolling hills of Shenandoah Valley, Virginia.

Image courtesy of Ray Harkness Photography

Recipient: Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation

Amount: $459,807.00
Acres: 141.39

As major armies further to the east converged on Petersburg, the war in the Shenandoah Valley was fought on a more constrained tactical scale but had a more perilous edge. Known as the breadbasket of the Confederacy, this valley located in Northwestern Virginia supplied badly needed foodstuffs to the South throughout the Civil War. This distinction made the valley a military target for the Union army of Major General David Hunter in 1864.

Living off the land and using scorched earth tactics as his soldiers advance up the valley, Hunter’s army engaged a Confederate force on June 5, near Piedmont, a small rural community northeast of present-day Staunton, Virginia. Advancing with superior artillery support, Union troops overwhelmed Confederate forces along a bend in the Middle River and took over 1,000 prisoners.

Having destroyed the last major Confederate force before Lexington, the Union army then marched to the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) and burned it to the ground on June 11.

This 2023 Battlefield Land Acquisition Grant awarded by the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program supports the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation efforts to maintain the rural character of the Piedmont Battlefield by applying a historic conservation easement on farmland that witnessed combat on June 5, 1864. Conservation easements allow farmers to continue to use their land for agriculture, but also protect it in perpetuity by limiting future development and subdivision of the property. In this case, portion of the farmland will also be set aside for public access, and the Foundation will install interpretive markers for the general public.

Battlefield Land Acquisition Grants from the NPS American Battlefield Protection Program empower preservation partners nationwide to acquire and preserve threatened Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and Civil War battlefields. In addition, the program administers three other grants: Preservation Planning Grants, which are open to all sites of armed conflict on American soil, the newly authorized Battlefield Restoration and Battlefield Interpretation Grant programs. This financial assistance generates community-driven stewardship of historic resources at the state, tribal and local levels.