Shenandoah / Sailor’s Creek Battlefield
Hawk Recreation Area, WV to Raleigh, NC | Driving the Entire Skyline Drive Through Shenandoah National Park | Monticello, VA | Sailor’s Creek Battlefield, VA | August 2024
On Friday morning, we left Hawk Recreation Area to continue our drive to North Carolina. We now had 3 days to make the drive, and so in an effort to delay driving through the heat and less scenic areas, we decided to spend today driving down almost the entirety of the Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. We made reservations for Loft Mountain Campground which is the furthest South campground on the drive, then got on the road!
We have visited Shenandoah multiple times before, and the only stretch we hadn’t driven was the Northernmost part — Front Royal to US-211. This made us pretty excited to start the drive this morning! We made our first stop in the park at the Dickey Ridge Visitor Center. We took our time and got our cancellation stamps, some pictures with Charlotte, and even stayed for a ranger talk. Charlotte got a lot of attention here — as you’ll see from one of the below pictures. People sort of flocked around to pet her and take her picture, and the crowd just attracted even more people. The little blond girl sitting in front of her prayed over her that her vision would be restored.
After that, we continued our drive South on the Skyline Drive. We made two other stops — one at another visitor center to have a picnic lunch, and another at a lookout so Curtis could run up the nearest hill that happened to be on his peak list. We made it to Loft Campground late that afternoon, found our spot and set up for the night. Unfortunately it was both hazy all day and overcast that evening, so we didn’t have a good sunset while camping here. Instead we went for short walks around the campground and Curtis went to another ranger talk that evening.
The next morning, we finished our drive South on the Skyline Drive, and began our drive across the piedmont. We stopped for a short walk near Charlottesville on the Saunders-Monticello Trail. We were honestly kinda shocked when we got there because this trail was MUCH busier than the even the national park had been — we were lucky to find a parking spot! We went for a short walk, but didn’t get very far since it was already quite hot and humid, as we expected. When leaving, we drove passed Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and plenty of other historic sites. But even if we were able to visit with Charlotte, we were a little turned off by how busy this area was. Someday we’ll plan better to revisit this area — hopefully in the shoulder season to avoid heat and crowds! We could even walk there from the trailhead we started at if we really wanted. Instead, we continued on our planned route East, claiming as many new counties as we could.
Our driving through the Virginia piedmont brought us close to Sailor’s Creek Battlefield, which also happened to be right at the tri-point of three counties. We stopped at the visitor center and Curtis talked to the rangers and read the exhibits for a bit before we had a lunch in the shade, hiding from the heat of the afternoon.
Sailor’s Creek is one of the last battles of the Civil War and was part of General Lee’s breakout from Richmond/Petersburg. On his retreat from Richmond, Lee’s Army became divided and spread out along both sides of the Appomattox River. As General Grant and his Lieutenants caught up and cut off some of Lee’s columns, the Confederates were forced to stand and fight. This took place in three separate engagements around Sailor’s Creek; the details of which are quite intricate. But to summarize, the Confederates lost substantially and a large portion of General Ewell’s command was forced to surrender – almost 1/5 of Lee’s entire command. In three days, this major victory would be overshadowed by the complete surrender of Lee to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse – though it certainly contributed.
After lunching, we went over to the historic Hillsman House where some of the heaviest fighting occurred. But it was warm, we still had a ways to go to get to Raleigh, and there honestly wasn’t much scenery other than the countryside, so we continued on.
After more driving and more county counting, that evening, we found a place to park overnight just North of Raleigh, at a boat ramp off of Falls Lake. It turned out to be a hopping place that Saturday evening, though most people cleared out after sunset. It definitely turned out to be one of our hottest/most uncomfortable nights while camping this summer, but at least it was a free and legal spot that set us up to visit downtown Raleigh the next morning before finishing our drive South!
