RICHMOND, VA – Capital Region Land Conservancy (“CRLC”) closed on its purchase of 38.5 acres on Long Bridge Road for $156,000 on March 20, 2020. Financing was provided by Colonial Farm Credit while CRLC completes fundraising and meets grant requirements from the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program and other donors.
The Long Bridge Road property lies within CRLC’s Conservation Vision Map for the Capital Region as a priority area and is also designated as a top priority conservation area in the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation’s ConserveVirginia model in the Cultural and Historic Preservation Category. It is within the boundaries of five Civil War Battlefields as determined by the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission (“CWSAC”) – Deep Bottom I Battlefield, Deep Bottom II Battlefield, Glendale Battlefield, Malvern Hill Battlefield, and Fair Oaks & Darbytown Road Battlefield.
The property is almost entirely wooded, containing 3,920 linear feet along Sweeney Creek as well as approximately 22.1 acres of Freshwater Forested/Shrub Wetlands, which closely resembles its wartime appearance. The main part of the fighting at First Deep Bottom occurred on July 28, 1864 when the Federal cavalry division of Gen. Alfred T.A. Torbert pushed eastward on Long Bridge Road, only to be attacked from the north by Confederate infantry. The primary combat occurred at CRLC’s newly acquired property and at an adjacent 125-acre property owned by the American Battlefield Trust (ABT) that is under a conservation easement held by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (DHR).
Capital Region Land Conservancy’s purchase of the Long Bridge Road property adds to a nearly contiguous area of approximately 6,425 acres that includes lands owned by the American Battlefield Trust, Richmond Battlefields Association, Henrico County’s Runnymede tract, private property under perpetual conservation easement, and the Richmond National Battlefield Park that connects to Malvern Hill Farm that CRLC acquired in 2018.