"Nature covers even the battlegrounds with verdure and bloom. Peace and plenty spring up in the track of the devouring campaign..."
— Frank Leslie, Illustrated Newspaper, May 6, 1865
While Manassas National Battlefield Park preserves the sites of the First and Second Battles of Manassas, it also protects over 4,000 acres of forests, grasslands, streams, and ponds on rolling hills in the central Piedmont region. Nearly half the park is grassland that provides crucial habitat for grassland birds and pollinators including monarch butterflies. The other half is forest from early-successional Virginia pine stands to relatively mature oak-hickory forests.
