Fort Harrison Trail

Confederate soldiers built Fort Harrison on this high ground to help protect the approaches to Richmond. In 1862, 30-year-old Lieutenant William E. Harrison, an engineer educated at the Virginia Military Institute, supervised construction of the fort that later bore his name. After heavy fighting in September 1864, the Union army captured the fort, altered its appearance, and renamed it in honor of Maine native Brigadier General Hiram Burnham, who had survived many of Virginia's great battles before being killed while leading his brigade in the attack. The troops who manned the fort afterward were among the first into Richmond when the Confederate capital fell the following April. Harrison died in northern Virginia in 1873.

Virginia · United States