Farmer's Rest

Fort Harrison National Cemetery is a United States National Cemetery located seven miles (11 km) south of the city of Richmond, in Henrico County, Virginia. Administered by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, It encompasses 1.5 acres (0.61 ha), and as of the end of 2005, had 1,570 interments. The cemetery was established in 1866. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.

The Battle of Chaffin's Farm and New Market Heights, also known as Laurel Hill and combats at Forts Harrison, Johnson, and Gilmer, was fought in Virginia on September 29–30, 1864, as part of the siege of Petersburg in the American Civil War.

Fort Harrison, later renamed Fort Burnham, was an important component of the Confederate defenses of Richmond during the American Civil War. Named after Lieutenant William Harrison, a Confederate engineer, it was the largest in the series of fortifications that extended from New Market Road to the James River that also included Forts Brady, Hoke, Johnson, Gregg, and Gilmer. These earthworks were designed to protect the strategically important Chaffin's Bluff on the James. On September 29, 1864, 2,500 Union soldiers from Major General Benjamin Butler's Army of the James overran Major Richard Cornelius Taylor's 200-man Confederate garrison and captured the fort in the Battle of Chaffin's Farm. Brigadier General Hiram Burnham, a native of Maine and a brigade commander in XVIII Corps, was killed in the assault, and the Union-held fort was renamed Fort Burnham in his honor. Although the attacks of September 29 had succeeded in capturing only Fort Harrison, General Robert E. Lee saw the potential threat to Richmond and ordered a counterattack on September 30. The attack failed, but Brigadier General George J. Stannard lost an arm while resisting Lee's assault. This failure forced the Confederates to realign their defenses farther west. Fort Burnham remained in Union hands until the end of the war. In 1930, members of the Richmond Parks Corporation, a local preservation society, constructed a log cabin on the site to serve as their headquarters. Today, this building serves as the Fort Harrison visitor center, part of Richmond National Battlefield Park. On September 22, 2014, park staff at Richmond National Battlefield Park discovered an artillery shell within the moat of a Confederate fortification known as Fort Gilmer in the park's Fort Harrison battlefield unit. Although it did not explode, the shell was a 12-pound explosive round, possibly used by Confederates at Fort Gilmer as one of several improvised hand grenades rolled down the side of the fort against Union soldiers from the 7th United States Colored Troops.

The Richmond National Battlefield Park commemorates 13 American Civil War sites around Richmond, Virginia, which served as the capital of the Confederate States of America for most of the war. The park connects certain features within the city with defensive fortifications and battle sites around it.

Chimborazo Hospital was a Civil War-era facility built in Richmond, Virginia to service the medical needs of the Confederate Army. It functioned between 1862 and 1865 in what is now Chimborazo Park, treating over 76,000 injured Confederate soldiers. During its existence, the hospital admitted nearly 78,000 patients and between 6,500 and 8,000 of these patients died. This mortality rate of between 8.3 and 10.3 percent is among the lowest such rates of period military hospitals.After the war, the Hospital became a refuge for freed slaves.

Chimborazo Park is a park and historic land site in Richmond, Virginia, United States. Created in 1874, the park was the site of Chimborazo Hospital, one of the world's largest military hospitals.

Varina-Enon Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge which carries Interstate 295 across the James River near Dutch Gap between Henrico County near Richmond and Chesterfield County near Hopewell, Virginia. It was opened to traffic in July 1990. The Varina-Enon Bridge has six lanes (three lanes each way) with full right and left shoulders, with 150 feet (46 m) of vertical navigational clearance and 630 feet (190 m) of horizontal navigational clearance. The bridge spans the shipping channel that leads to the Port of Richmond. The overall bridge length is 4,680 feet (1,430 m). The bridge is owned and maintained by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT). It was named for Varina, the original county seat of Henrico County which was located near the north end, and Enon, a small community near the south end in Chesterfield County. This bridge was also affected by the 1993 tornado that destroyed half of the Historic District of Petersburg, Virginia, a Wal-Mart in nearby Colonial Heights, and damaged portions of the city of Hopewell.

Dutch Gap Canal is located on the James River in Chesterfield County, Virginia just north of the lost 17th-century town of Henricus. The canal's construction was initiated by Union forces during the American Civil War to bypass a meander loop of the river around a peninsula known as Farrar's Island that was controlled by Confederate artillery. The canal was completed after the war and is now the main channel of the James River in this area. Today, the area south of the canal is the location of the Dutch Gap Conservation Area and Henricus Historical Park.

Varina ( və-RY-nə) is a former unincorporated community and current magisterial district in the easternmost portion of Henrico County, Virginia, United States.

The City of Henrico (also known as Henrico) is one of the oldest counties in the Colony of Virginia. It was one of four incorporations established in the colony by its proprietor, the Virginia Company. The City of Henrico, which included the settlement of Henricus, was the furthest incorporation upstream on the James River. In 1634, Henrico was reorganized under royal authority as the shire of Henrico, one of eight shires in the Crown Colony of Virginia, Later, it became known as Henrico County, Virginia.

Varina Farms, also known as Varina Plantation or Varina Farms Plantation or Varina on the James, is a plantation established in the 17th century on the James River about 10 miles (16 km) south of Richmond, Virginia. An 820-acre (330 ha) property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 as "Varina Plantation". At that time it included two contributing buildings and one other contributing site.It was established 50 miles (80 km) from the first settlement at Jamestown in the Virginia Colony, and across the river from Henricus, established by Thomas Dale in 1611. Varina Farm, as it is now called, was still a working, privately owned farm in 1977.

The Dutch Gap Canal Lights were built to mark the ends of Dutch Gap Canal, now called Dutch Gap Cutoff, which is a 3⁄4 nautical mile (1.4 km; 0.86 mi) cut across the base of an oxbow in the James River between Hopewell and Richmond, Virginia. They were on Farrar's Island, on the south side of the river.The first two structures were small wood frame towers similar in design to the Jordan Point Light, together with a keeper's house, which were built in 1875. The second tower washed away in December 1878; the first had been lost earlier. Both were replaced by lights on posts. The keeper's house was threatened by erosion of the cliff and was moved inland in 1890.In 1910 the lights were replaced by fixed lights. Their function survives, in modern form, as lights on skeleton towers, both with the characteristic Quick Flashing Green, numbers "151" and "155", Light List numbers 2-12705 and 2-12735. The coordinates shown are for light 151 which is actually in the river. The original light was on the bank to the south.