Resaca Battlefield

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Reenactment of the Battle of Resaca

Credit: Jule Medders

In May, 1864, Confederate troops under General Joseph E. Johnson dug fortifications into rolling hills in Resaca, Georgia, attempting to stall the Union Major General William T. Sherman's advance on Atlanta. More than 150,000 soldiers fought for two days; thousands were killed or wounded, and the battle ended with the Confederate soldiers in retreat.

Each Spring, men in blue and grey descend on Resaca to reenact this key battle in the Civil War and remember the soldiers who fell in it. The reenactment takes place on a farm that in 2011, was permanently protected from development as part of a growing Resaca Battlefield Park. This battle site, and others in northern Georgia had been threatened by Atlanta's burgeoning sprawl. Working with Gordon County, the American Battlefield Protection Program, the Georgia Battlefields Association, and the Civil War Trust, The Trust for Public Land protected the land with a permanent conservation easement.

The Resaca protection effort comes as the nation marks the 150th anniversary of its great civil conflict (1861-1865) and is the latest of many TPL Civil War battlefield conservation projects including Morris Island, in Charleston Harbor, the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park in Tennessee, and Murphy Farm at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.