Under the Forest Floor: Excavations at a Confederate Winter Encampment, Orange, Virginia

Matthew Reeves and Clarence Geier

Situated in Orange Virginia, on the lands making up Montpelier, are a series of

Confederate Winter encampments occupied during the Winter of 1863 and 1864. Preliminary

surveys and historical research indicates that three Brigades (consisting of close to 4600 men)

were camped on lands now owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In the Spring

of 2002, the Montpelier Archaeology Department began surveys in the northern portion of the

property where local relic hunters had informed us there were a number of Confederate winter

encampments. These surveys revealed several camps—of which one was surveyed and was

determined to be a well preserved camp consisting of over 5 acres of hut sites. With this

discovery in hand, Montpelier hosted two field schools (one with James Madison University and

the other with State University of New York at Potsdam) that enabled us to conduct additional

field survey and mapping of one section of the encampment and excavate four hut locations. In

this paper we will discuss our initial findings in regard to layout of this camp and differences in

architectural form and material goods recovered from the four huts excavated. We will begin

with an overall historical context for the camps.

Historical Context

A very pertinent background issue given the military context of the camps is an

explanation for camp site locale. The occupation of camps at Montpelier were part of an overall

strategy whereby Lee used the high banks of the Rapidan River as a defensive shield to keep the

Union Army stalled during the Winter of 1863 and 1864. This defensive move on Lee’s part was

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