VA-O47 Union Raid on Coalfield Station

Marker text: UNION RAID ON COALFIELD STATION

On the first day of Union Brig. Gen. August V. Kautz's second raid (12-17 May 1864) on Confederate railroads around Richmond, 3,000 cavalrymen rode northwest from Bermuda Hundred and passed Chesterfield Court House at 1:00P.M. Arriving about midnight at Midlothian's Coalfield Station on the Richmond and Danville Railroad, a quarter-mile north, they cut telegraph lines and burned the depot, woodsheds, and railroad cars. They destroyed the tracks using tools from nearby coal mines. Maj. Samuel P. Wetherill, 11th Pa. Cav., intervened to rescind the orders to set the coal mines afire.

Department of Historic Resources, 1995.