023-0018

Rose Hill

VLR Listing Date

12/12/2019

NRHP Listing Date

08/07/2020

NRHP Reference Number

MP100005428

Constructed in the mid-1850s to replace a dwelling likely built for Martin Nalle before 1815, Culpeper County’s Rose Hill is an architecturally important I-house designed in the nationally popular Greek Revival style and with surviving antebellum domestic outbuildings. Rose Hill has been listed under the Civil War in Virginia MPD, as it is also significant as the place where Union Brigadier General H. Judson Kilpatrick and Colonel Ulric Dahlgren met and planned a complicated cavalry raid on Richmond, the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid, which President Lincoln approved. Its goal was to free Union prisoners held in the city under inhumane conditions. The raid failed disastrously. After Confederates killed Dahlgren, who led one wing of the cavalry force, they found papers on his body, allegedly in his handwriting, that revealed a plan for the raiders to capture and kill Confederate president Jefferson Davis and his cabinet, and set Richmond ablaze. When Richmond newspapers began publishing on March 5, 1864, these clear violations of the rules of war, the ensuing outrage and controversy shook the United States government as well as the army high command. Military leaders from Major General George G. Meade to Kilpatrick denied issuing such orders. Northern and Southern newspapers debated the authenticity of the documents, which the Confederate government used to launch several failed plots to kidnap Lincoln in retaliation.

Last Updated: June 2, 2023

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Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark

For additional information Read

Nomination Form

023-0053

Brandy Station Battlefield

"Virginia's Lost" Delisted Landmarks

204-5097

Culpeper Municipal Electric Plant and Waterworks

Culpeper (County)

076-5168

The Civil War in Virginia, 1861-1865, Historic & Archaeological Resources (MPD)

(MPD) Multiple Property Document