“Bearing the People’s Love: the U.S. Sanitary Commission in Virginia, 1864” - Lectures on the Lawn at Totopotomoy Creek

The Rural Plains Foundation and the National Park Service are pleased to an-nounce the 2025 “Lectures on the Lawn” series for 2025. Join us on three consec-utive Thursday evenings in June at the Shelton House in Hanover County, part of the Totopoptomy Creek Battlefield unit of Richmond National Battlefield Park. We have lined up some fascinating discussions of local history and personalities!

June 19

Ranger Madelyn Hollis, National Park Service
“Bearing the People’s Love: the U.S. Sanitary Commission in Virginia, 1864”

Formed in the first days of the Civil War, the the United States Sanitary Commis-sion was composed of civilian volunteers devoted to the health of Union soldiers, through medical education, food deliveries, and even medical care near the battle-field. It was called by one admirer “the great artery bearing the people’s love to the people’s army.” Ranger Maddie’s talk will detail how Commission members, some working near Rural Plains, cared for the multitudes of wounded soldiers felled at the Battle of Totopotomy Creek and elsewhere during the 1864 Overland Campaign.

The lectures begin at 6:30 on the lawn in front of the Shelton House at Rural Plains, located at 7273 Studley Road. They are free and open to the public — pic-nic suppers are encouraged! (Rain location: Enon United Methodist Church, 6156 Studley Road.)