Military
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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. The junction became strategically important in 1864 because 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 tried to disrupt that traffic to hinder Lee and capture Richmond, but Confederate forces successfully defended the junction during the North Anna River campaign, 21-26 May 1864, and the Union army withdrew east to Cold Harbor.
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Virginia · United States
