Qualla: Union Civil War Fortification

Union Civil War Fortification: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The shallow trenches and log-and-earth breastworks on the hill above the Little Kanawha River crossing at Bulltown are still there. Faint to the casual visitor, plain to anyone who has been told where to look, they trace the perimeter of a Union strongpoint that on October 13, 1863, held against twelve hours of Confederate attack. The site is now an archaeological reserve administered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as part of the Bulltown Historic Area on the shore of Burnsville Lake. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 and remains one of the best-preserved Civil War earthwork sites in West Virginia.

Union Civil War Fortification: What Survived

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Civil War field fortifications were almost always meant to be temporary. Soldiers built them in a hurry, defended or attacked them in a single engagement, and abandoned them when the unit moved on. Most have been plowed under, built over, or simply weathered into oblivion. The Bu...

Union Civil War Fortification: The Garrison's Hill

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Union garrison stationed here in 1863 numbered about four hundred men under Captain William Mattingly. They occupied a hilltop above the Little Kanawha that gave them long sight lines in every direction. The fort itself was modest by the standards of the eastern theater - no ...

Union Civil War Fortification: Inside the Bulltown Historic Area

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Corps of Engineers manages the fortification site as one component of a larger interpretive zone called the Bulltown Historic Area, on the south shore of Burnsville Lake. The area also includes a reconstructed mid-nineteenth-century village with a relocated farmhouse, a small...

Union Civil War Fortification: A Quiet National Register Listing

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The 1984 National Register listing was prepared by archaeologist Robert F. Maslowski, whose nomination form documents what the test excavations revealed and argues for the site's significance as an unusually intact example of a small Union mountain garrison. The listing covers th...