Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Earthworks



Every time I’ve shopped at Harrison Crossing out Rt. 3 West, I’ve noticed a trail to the left of the Home Depot, with those informational displays that indicate something important happened here. So last weekend after errands, I finally investigated what that little trail is all about. Turns out it doesn’t go very far, just a few hundred feet to the top of the rise. The whole area around the shopping center was significant in the Battle of Chancellorsville, but apparently you don’t actually need to preserve Civil War sites—marking them with a little signage is good enough. (Yes, I know it would be nearly impossible to get anything built out Rt. 3 if you had to preserve every historically significant patch of land, and yes, I know a marked trail with educational displays is better than nothing.) At the top of the hill is an example of Civil War earthworks, those dirt mounds with trenches behind them used during military operations. It’s not much of a hike, but if you had your kids with you while you were shopping, and they were antsy, and the weather was nice, you could let them run up and down the trail. Just no jumping on the earthworks, please.

Here are the earthworks, and the rear end of Riverbend High School:

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