VA-E21 Hanover Junction

Marker text: HANOVER JUNCTION

Two 19th-century railroads crossed at grade level just east: the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac and the Virginia Central, which ran west to the Shenandoah Valley, the Confederacy's breadbasket during the Civil War. This junction attained strategic importance in 1864 as the railroads carried supplies to Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and the Army of the Potomac attempted to disrupt that traffic to hinder Lee and capture Richmond. The Confederates, however, successfully defended the junction during the North Anna River campaign, 21-26 May 1864, and the Union army withdrew east to Cold Harbor.

Department of Historic Resources, 1997