The Shenandoah Valley was fought over repeatedly during the Civil War, and the area around Harrisonburg has some of the best-preserved and most historically significant battlefields in Virginia. New Market Battlefield, 50 kilometres north on I-81, was the site of an 1864 Confederate victory in which 247 cadets from Virginia Military Institute fought in the line — the youngest force in any major Civil War engagement. The Hall of Valor museum at the battlefield site is well-maintained and covers the entire 1864 Valley Campaign.
Closer to Harrisonburg, the Cross Keys and Port Republic battlefields (10–15 kilometres south) were sites of Stonewall Jackson's 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign, one of the most studied examples of mobile warfare in American military history. The battlefields are mostly on private land with limited access but the drives through the battlefield corridors are scenic and evocative.