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 Part I—The General Outline. Part III—The City History. 
 
 Part II—The River History. Part IV—The Civil War History. 
 
 Part V—Story of the Siege of Petersburg. 
 
 Petersburg and the Appamattox 
 
 No city in America has more vital 
 links connecting it with the crucial 
 periods of the national history than 
 has Petersburg. It was the objective 
 point of Cornwallis when he struck 
 north after his Carolina campaign, and 
 it was the objective point of Grant 
 when he struck south after his Wil¬ 
 derness Campaign and Cold Harbor. 
 In each case, it was the turning point 
 of destiny, and at Petersburg were 
 enacted the opening scenes of the last 
 acts of the two great war dramas that 
 closed at Yorktown and at Appomat¬ 
 tox. 
 
 Petersburg is a palimpsest written 
 upon by each of the five periods of 
 American history. Beneath the fair 
 writing of this modem day there are 
 still visible the red strokes of the Civil 
 war. Beneath this, however, may still 
 be read the story of a strong and cul¬ 
 tured people, active and successful in 
 the national period. Then come the 
 grim tracings of the wars with Eng¬ 
 land, and beneath them the sturdy 
 strokes of the colonists have left their 
 deeds “writ large,” with markings of 
 the Indian period still visible to the 
 careful eye. Thus Petersburg is the 
 most interesting city in America, for 
 the reason that each age has left upon 
 it an impress that has not been ef¬ 
 faced by the attrition of the new era. 
 
 PART I—GENERAL OUTLINE 
 Three Centuries 
 
 Here lived perhaps Pocahontas and 
 probably that Queene of Appamatuck 
 that brought Smith water to wash his 
 hands. Nearby was the site of the 
 East India School established by the 
 colonists, and yet nearer, the site of 
 Pierce’s plantation, where four of the 
 
 settlers were killed in the first Indian 
 massacre. Thus, Petersburg has a 
 clear line of descent of three centuries. 
 It was Appamatuck on Smith’s map of 
 Virginia in 1612; it was Peter’s Point 
 in the commercial history of 1712; it 
 was the Cockade City in the war his¬ 
 tory of 1812, and it is the Petersburg 
 of world history in 1912. 
 
 Early Events 
 
 Old Fort Henry, built in 1645-6, was 
 the nucleus of the original town, and 
 a suburb of the city today is said to 
 be the site of the Indian village de¬ 
 stroyed in 1676 by the “Virginia Reb¬ 
 el,” Nathaniel Bacon. 
 
 Two famous early expeditions set 
 out from Petersburg. Thomas Batte 
 and his companions set out in 1671 to 
 explore the Western country by com¬ 
 mand of Major-General Wood of Fort 
 Henry, and these men made the first 
 crossing of the mountains by the Eng¬ 
 lish. It was from Bellevue, still a sub¬ 
 urban home of Petersburg, that John 
 May and Charles Johnson departed in 
 1790 for that fateful journey down the 
 Kanawha and Ohio that was to bring 
 death to May and suffering and fame 
 to Johnson, as told in his famous Nar¬ 
 rative. Two other expeditions ended 
 at Petersburg, for here Col. William 
 Byrd relapsed into luxury on his re¬ 
 turn from the “Dividing Line” in 1728 
 and here he laid the foundation of the 
 city on his return from the Land of 
 Eden in 1733, as related in the West- 
 over Manuscripts. 
 
 Not all the historic sites of Peters¬ 
 burg, however, have been made fam¬ 
 ous by war or daring. The arts of 
 peace and the amenities of life have 
 also their memorials. Especially inter¬ 
 esting are three famous banquets in 
 which Petersburg showed its hospital- 
 
 3 
 
 595843 
 
ity. Here President Washington was 
 feasted during his southern tour in 
 1791, and here General LaFayette was 
 feted forty years after his first visit 
 during his American tour in 1824. Here 
 too, Vice President Aaron Burr, on his 
 way south in 1805, was honored with 
 a great banquet, equal to those that 
 marked the coming of the Father of 
 his Country and of the Hero of Two 
 Worlds. 
 
 Thus the historical sites, memorials, 
 and buildings of Petersburg, with the 
 grim cordon of forts and battle lines 
 of two great wars, form a series of 
 object lessons in American life in 
 peace and war, and the city itself may 
 fairly be called an epitome of Ameri¬ 
 can history. 
 
 Famous Sites 
 
 * 
 
 Here are found Indian relics, sites 
 and traditions; one of the first co¬ 
 lonial forts, the first permanent out¬ 
 post south of the James; an early 
 trading station, from which the city 
 derives its name; the two famous 
 “Castles” of the founder’s grandson; 
 old taverns, duelling grounds and race¬ 
 courses; sites of the Revolutionary pe¬ 
 riod, made famous by the great lead¬ 
 ers on both sides; a fine colonial man¬ 
 sion used as headquarters by a Brit¬ 
 ish general and described by the Mar¬ 
 quis de Chastellux in his Travels; the 
 site of the historic home in which Gen¬ 
 eral Phillips died; the old bridge, torn 
 up, rebuilt and burned by the contend¬ 
 ing armies on two successive days; 
 the church where Whitfield preached 
 his sermon to critical ears, and the 
 spot where the fiery preaching of the 
 evangelist Williams was cooled by a 
 fire hose. 
 
 About 1800 began another series of 
 historic sites. Here was the early 
 theater, where the Petersburg Thes¬ 
 pians acted, succeeded by one of the 
 most famous early theatres in Ameri¬ 
 ca, which was visited by all of the 
 great actors of the earlier part of the 
 century. Here Burk wrote the first 
 early history of Virginia and fell in a 
 duel. Asbury’s Journal tells how Pe¬ 
 tersburg was often visited in his itin¬ 
 erary and how he and Bishop Coke 
 found warm welcome here. The law 
 office of General Winfield Scott may 
 still be seen, as may the home where 
 Calhoun’s body lay in state at a later 
 time. The very streets of the city in 
 
 definite series record the national pe¬ 
 riod of American history. 
 
 The Civil war left its impress upon 
 the city and made a third group of his¬ 
 toric sites. The three headquarters of 
 General Lee mark the gradual reces¬ 
 sion during the longest siege in Amer¬ 
 ican history. President Davis stopped 
 here on his way to Richmond, and 
 Lincoln and Grant made two homes 
 famous by their visits. The four lines 
 of the fortifications may still be traced 
 around the city, and here were scenes 
 of great battles and of the famous ex¬ 
 plosion of the Crater. Perhaps most 
 striking and reverend of all, within 
 sight of the Crater itself, stands a 
 beautiful old colonial church and 
 churchyard, containing memorials, 
 graves, and epitaphs of wonderful in¬ 
 terest. 
 
 Old Bland ford Church 
 
 Probably the most unique memorial 
 in America is this church, known as 
 old Blandford or Bristol Parish Church. 
 Few spots may be compared wdth it 
 in sacredness or inspiration. “Stand¬ 
 ing in quiet beauty amid acres of 
 heroic dust” it thrills the visitor as 
 does no other spot in America save 
 Mount Vernon itself. Around it have 
 surged the combats of two great strug¬ 
 gles, but two war dates stand out in 
 local history. One is the Ninth of 
 June, 1864, when the volunteer citizen- 
 soldiers held back Kautz’s raid; and 
 the other is the thirtieth of July, 1864, 
 when the Burnside Mine was exploded 
 and the Crater fight took place. Both 
 of these events have fitting memorials 
 here, where thirty-thousand Confede¬ 
 rate dead lie buried, while tlrere are 
 close at hand stately monuments to 
 the thousands of Federal soldiers that 
 rest in the Federal cemeteries. 
 
 History and Romance 
 
 Romance and pathos combine with 
 history around the old church, and 
 about it have ebbed and flowed the 
 very life tides of the city and nation. 
 In the southeast comer of the church¬ 
 yard, under foilage of ivy and peri¬ 
 winkles, lies buried General Phillips, 
 called by Jefferson “the proudest man 
 of the proudest nation on earth.” Here 
 it was that Baron Steuben made his 
 first stand against Phillips and Arnold 
 in the defense of Petersburg in the 
 Revolution. Here it was that the 
 Washington memorial service was 
 
 4 
 
 Southern Pamphlets 
 
 Rare Book Collection 
 
 UNC**Chap«l Hill 
 
held in 1799, and here in 1826 was 
 held the Jefferson memorial service. 
 Parson Syme was interrupted in this 
 service by the alarm of the great fire, 
 second only to the greater fire of 1815. 
 In the shadow of these walls was 
 fought the Jeffreys-Johnson duel in 
 1795, and the Boisseau-Adams duel in 
 1821. In the church itself in 1844 An- 
 tommattie killed himself for love, and 
 just outside the churchyard (as a sui¬ 
 cide might not be buried in holy 
 ground) stands the tombstone, paid 
 for with money collected in Corsica, 
 with the inscription, “Honor was his 
 only vice.” 
 
 In the Civil war, the bloody lines 
 of circumvallation barely missed the 
 confines of the cemetery, and at least 
 one monument was shattered by the 
 artillery fire. 
 
 A Virginia Pantheon 
 
 Thus, old Blandford church, with 
 its Colonial and Revolutionary history, 
 with its simple memorial tablet to an 
 early rector, with its beautiful D. A. 
 R. memorial in honor of the men of 
 the Revolution, with its eleven Tiffany 
 Apostle windows commemorating the 
 Confederate States (and two to Mis¬ 
 souri and Maryland), with its elo¬ 
 quently simple U. D. C. honor roll of 
 the citizen-heroes of the Ninth of June, 
 with its stately marble tablet to the 
 immortal Crater Legion, and with its 
 touching memorial to the leader of 
 their charge, seems a real focus of 
 American history and a veritable Pan¬ 
 theon of Confederate heroism. 
 
 The Burk cenotaph and the Bland¬ 
 ford Poem connect the church also 
 with American literature. The famous 
 lines on the old church make the near¬ 
 est approach to an American “Elegy.’ 
 This poem is certainly the most beau¬ 
 tiful spontaneous tribute to any church 
 in America. The cenotaph to John 
 Daly Burk, the fiery Irishman and the 
 author of the most famous early his¬ 
 tory of Virginia, is just outside the 
 walls of the church, and in the dis¬ 
 tance may be seen Fleet’s Hill, where 
 Burk fell in a duel. 
 
 The McRae Monument near at hand 
 completes the war memorials of the 
 church. Not only does the inscription 
 tell of the valor of the Petersburg 
 Volunteers of 1812, but the five panels 
 of the enclosure show also the arms 
 that they bore. The flint-lock muskets 
 and sabers crossed; the stiff military 
 cap and pompon; the belt and ammuni¬ 
 
 tion-box; the garlands and wreaths; 
 the American shield with the eagle 
 and cannon; the battle-axes at the cor¬ 
 ners and the seventeen stars above the 
 rail; all these things bespeak the ro¬ 
 bust militant patriotism of an earlier 
 day. Here all the panoply of war is 
 displayed in this memorial of the dar¬ 
 ing of cne company, while yonder in 
 the church the deeds of tens of thous¬ 
 ands are commemorated by simple 
 tablets and holy emblems, with not a 
 sign of war to mar the sacred pre¬ 
 cincts. 
 
 PART II—THE RIVER HISTORY 
 The Appomattox 
 
 The story of Petersburg begins nat¬ 
 urally with the river. The Appomat¬ 
 tox, like other Virginia rivers, was both 
 an entering wedge of civilization and a 
 colonial link and highway. Here Peters¬ 
 burg history begins with the planting 
 of a fort by the settlers in the time of 
 Governor Berkley, and the site of Old 
 Fort Henry is today the spot of earl¬ 
 iest authentic interest. The fifteen- 
 mile river stretch from Bellevue just 
 above Petersburg, to City Point at the 
 junction of the James, is scarcely sur¬ 
 passed in America for variety and in¬ 
 tensity of interest. Every bluff was a 
 plantation home and every wharf was 
 a port of entry. 
 
 Matoax to Fort Henry 
 
 Randolph of Roanoke was born on 
 these banks, and his father and 
 mother lie buried within sound of the 
 falls of the river. These two graves, 
 with their quaint Latin inscriptions, 
 lend special interest to Matoax above 
 the falls, Matoax was the private name 
 of Pocahontas, and it was from Ma¬ 
 toax that John Randolph’s mother fled 
 with him to Bizarre at the time of 
 Arnold’s threatened invasion. Nearby 
 are Olive Hill, the Atkinson home, and 
 Bellevue, the home of John May, where 
 Johnston’s Narrative opens. Across 
 the river from Matoax the line of sub¬ 
 urban estates begins with two other 
 Atkinson homes, well-preserved Mans¬ 
 field and Sysonby. Following the river 
 to the city limits, the first historic 
 mansion of the colonial days is Bat¬ 
 tersea, the home of the Banisters. 
 This home, an excellent example of 
 colonial architecture, was occupied 
 during the Revolution by the British 
 
under Simcoe, and was visited after 
 the war by the Marquis de Chastellux 
 and was described by him in his Trav¬ 
 els. 
 
 On a high bluff at the foot of the 
 falls stand the Dunlop house, built on 
 the site of Old Fort Henry; and direct¬ 
 ly across the river is Fleet’s Hill, 
 where Burk fell in his famous duel 
 with Coquebert in 1808. 
 
 Campbell’s Bridge 
 
 Here Campbell’s bridge spans the 
 narrow gorge, and it was at this bridge 
 that Burk’s eleven-year old son, John, 
 learned of his father’s death. He had 
 spent the week end at Olive Hill with 
 his schoolmate, Tom Atkinson, and on 
 that Monday morning the two boys 
 had seen the duelling ground wet with 
 blood as they came past Fleet’s Hill on 
 their way to school in town. John 
 Junius Burk was later Judge Burk, of 
 Louisiana, when a Petersburg Robert¬ 
 son became Governor of that State, 
 and Thomas Pleasants Atkinson after¬ 
 wards wrote his reminiscences of Pe¬ 
 tersburg in the interesting “Moratock 
 Papers.” 
 
 It was over Campbell’s bridge that 
 General Lee’s army passed on the 
 night of April 2nd, 1865, in the retreat 
 that ended at Appomattox. 
 
 Peter’s Point 
 
 A short distance down on the south 
 bank and in the very heart of the city 
 itself is the birthplace of Petersburg, 
 the old Trading Station of Peter 
 Jones, from whom the city derived its 
 name long before 1733, when Colonel 
 William Byrd with his four compan¬ 
 ions “laid the foundation” of the two 
 cities, Petersburg and Richmond, as 
 told in his Westover Manuscripts. It 
 is worthy of note that two Petersburg¬ 
 ers, Banister and Jones, were among 
 the four companions of Colonel Byrd 
 in this “founding” of the two cities, 
 and while “Shocco’s” became Rich¬ 
 mond, “Peter’s Point’’ became Peters¬ 
 burg. 
 
 Opposite the City 
 
 Further down the river on the 
 northern bank are the high bluffs over¬ 
 looking the city, now called Colonial 
 Heights. Here may be seen the re¬ 
 markable box hedge at Oak Hill, said 
 to be the oldest in America. This is 
 
 on Archer’s (or Hector’s or Dunn’s) 
 Hill, from which Lafayette shelled 
 Petersburg during the Revolution, 
 when it was occupied by the British 
 under Arnold, Phillips, and Cornwallis. 
 Here was Hector’s Spring and the 
 bridge over which the gay cavalcades 
 came trooping on the Fourth of July 
 long ago. Winding down from Colo¬ 
 nial Heights is the road along which 
 General Washington came with his es¬ 
 cort of honor on his historic visit in 
 1791, and along which a third of a 
 century later, LaFayette came into 
 Petersburg in 1824, when he was wel¬ 
 comed as a hero by the city. On the 
 next bluff is historic Violet Bank, the 
 home of the Shores, the first head¬ 
 quarters of General Lee during the 
 siege of Petersburg. The Conjuror’s 
 Neck Road leads from Violet Bank 
 past Roslyn, the home of the Gam¬ 
 bles to Brick House, the home of the 
 Kennons. In the lowlands here oppo¬ 
 site the city is the suburb of Pocahon¬ 
 tas, once “Witten Town,” where stood 
 for years an interesting relic of Indian 
 times, the “Pocahontas Basin,” now 
 transferred to the Courthouse. 
 
 Pocahontas Bridge 
 
 Connecting this suburb of Pocahon¬ 
 tas with the city is the historic Poca¬ 
 hontas bridge. Tom up on April 26th, 
 1781, by the retreating Americans un¬ 
 der Steuben, rebuilt on the next day 
 for the passage of the English under 
 Phillips, and then burned while the 
 shipping flamed in the harbor, its 
 ruins were seen by the Marquis de 
 Chastellux, when in the same year he 
 visited Spencer’s Tavern beside the 
 bridge and praised the fish and the 
 music of the tavern. Here in 1812, an 
 armed schooner fired a salute of honor 
 to the departing Petersburg Volun¬ 
 teers; and here too, in 1858, the Pe¬ 
 tersburg Artillery fired a salute of 
 thirteen guns on the arrival of the 
 Southern Star, the first steamship 
 that ever came to Petersburg, about 
 ten years after the first telegraph mes¬ 
 sage was sent from Petersburg to Nor¬ 
 folk. Below the bridge lies the har¬ 
 bor, and adjoining the town is the 
 suburb of Blandford, which was once a 
 center of industry and fashion. Here 
 Haffey established the first nail fac¬ 
 tory in this part of the country, and 
 here the Old Tavern and Boyd’s Tav¬ 
 ern and the Rising Sun were places of 
 
 6 
 
resort. Here a famous Petersburger 
 had his law office in a modest build¬ 
 ing, still standing, before he became 
 the hero of two wars as General Win¬ 
 field Scott. 
 
 Below the City 
 
 Below the city, the river flows on 
 past Clifton and Brick House on the 
 left bank, and past Greencroft, the 
 home of the Skipwiths, and Puddle- 
 dock, the home of the Stiths and Her¬ 
 berts, to famous Port Walthall. This 
 was once the port both of Petersburg 
 and of Richmond, whence the Virginia 
 flour was shipped for decades for the 
 South American trade. This place de¬ 
 rived its name from the Walthalls, 
 whose Valley Farm house was said to 
 be the first built between the Appo¬ 
 mattox and the James. Almost oppo¬ 
 site is Gatling’s or Spring Hill, where 
 the sunken area still shows the effect 
 of the mysterious landslide of twenty 
 years ago. Then comes classic Tuscu- 
 lum, the home of the Gilliams, on the 
 right, and historic Cobb’s, home of the 
 Bollings on the left, where the first 
 deaf-mute school in America was es¬ 
 tablished. This was the headquarters 
 of General Butler during the Civil 
 war. Here he had his signal tower 
 visible from Petersburg, and just be¬ 
 low is the lofty Point of Rocks. 
 
 Broadway 
 
 Below this Point, nine miles from 
 Petersburg, is historic Broadway, 
 where landed the French Huguenot 
 refugees for whom the Assembly 
 made provision of food and land and 
 who later settled in Powhatan county. 
 Here General Smallwood checked the 
 first advance of Arnold’s fleet in 1781, 
 and here General Grant had his pon¬ 
 toon bridge in the Civil war. Over 
 this pontoon bridge, on the night of 
 the Ninth of June, 1864, were march¬ 
 ed the Petersburg soldiers captured in 
 Kautz’s Raid, and one of the prisoners, 
 Anthony Keiley, has told the story of 
 this march and of his interesting in¬ 
 terviews with Kautz and Butler. 
 
 From Broadway, the river flows 
 on past Mitchell’s and past Caw- 
 son’s, the early home of the Blands 
 where John Randolph was bom, and 
 past Kippax, the first home of the 
 Bollings, until it broadens out in sight 
 
 of beautiful Appamattox, for nearly 
 three centuries owned by the Eppes 
 family. Here is quiet City Point, 
 twice alive with hostile troops and 
 munitions, while on the further bank 
 lies Bermuda Hundred and between 
 them the picturesque Appomattox 
 blends into the stately James. 
 
 City Point and Petersburg 
 
 Both Bermuda Hundred and City 
 Point are closely knit to Petersburg 
 history. It was at Bermuda Hun¬ 
 dred, the 1611 settlement of Sir 
 Thomas Dale, that the first Bristol 
 Parish church was built, succeeded 
 by the Ferry Chapel, nearer to Pe¬ 
 tersburg, and later (in 1735) by the 
 Wells Hill church or Old Blandford 
 itself, as told in Bishop Meade’s “Old 
 Churches.” City Point, or Charles City 
 Point, just missed being the first set¬ 
 tlement, as Newport left his ships 
 on his arrival in Virginia and coast¬ 
 ed in a shallop to this point in his 
 exploration, before returning and 
 bringing his ships further up the 
 river to make a landing at James¬ 
 town. Here the East India school 
 was established in 1621 to be a feeder 
 to Henrico college. In the Revolution, 
 it was at City Point that part of the 
 British forces of Phillips landed for 
 the advance on Petersburg, while the 
 sick leader himself was borne by car¬ 
 riage from Westover. In slave days, 
 the Petersburg officers here took 
 steamer in 1858 in their hurried pur¬ 
 suit of the kidnapping schooner “Kez- 
 iah,” which was bearing off five run¬ 
 away slaves. The steamer in which the 
 pursuit was made was called the W. 
 W. Townes. City Point was Grant’s 
 base of supplies in the siege of Pe¬ 
 tersburg, and he built from this point 
 a military railroad of twelve or fifteen 
 miles, entirely within his direct and 
 reverse line of fortifications around 
 Petersburg. Here President Lincoln 
 landed on his visit to the evacuated 
 city. 
 
 It is interesting to note that while 
 the James lost its Indian name of 
 Powhatan and kept the royal Eng¬ 
 lish title, the Appomattox threw off 
 its imported name of the Bristol and 
 reverted to the original Indian name. 
 The old English name of the river is 
 still preserved, however, in the name 
 of Bristol parish mentioned above. 
 
 7 
 
PART III—THE CITY HISTORY. 
 
 Bollingbrook 
 
 These river estates, however, with 
 all their charm of colonial life and 
 cheer, are second in interest to the 
 historic mansions in Petersburg it¬ 
 self. Even more famous than the 
 Battersea house already mentioned 
 is East Hill or Bollingbrook, the site 
 of the colonial home'of the Bollings. 
 This house was twice the headquarters 
 of the British during the Revolution. 
 All the inmates had to take refuge in 
 the cellar during the shelling by La¬ 
 fayette, and one cannon-ball passed 
 through the house and killed the cook. 
 Here Arnold, with his Saratoga limp, 
 dandled the children, and here Gen¬ 
 eral Phillips, lying on his death-bed, 
 complained that the Americans would 
 not even let him die in peace. From 
 this home Cornwallis wrote in boast¬ 
 ful vein of Lafayette, that “the boy’’ 
 could not escape him now. 
 
 The Castles 
 
 Two famous wooden “castles” in 
 the city were built by Peter Jones 
 the Second, grandson of Peter Jones 
 the trader, and both are now occu¬ 
 pied as residences. The first is “Folly 
 Castle” on Washington street, built 
 in 1763 and now occupied by Mr. Munt. 
 This house was originally named from 
 the folly of its then childless owner in 
 building so large a house. Davis 
 street, which bordered the estate, was 
 formerly called Folly street. 
 
 The second of the “castles” is “Stir¬ 
 ling Castle” on High street, now the 
 residence of Mrs. Spotswood. This 
 was originally the country house of 
 Peter Jones the Second, but after his 
 death his daughter had the house 
 moved to Petersburg and erected on 
 the spot where it now stands. Two 
 other wooden mansions of somewhat 
 similar style have an interesting his¬ 
 tory. One is the Bennet-Shore man¬ 
 sion at the comer of Adams and Mar¬ 
 shall streets, now the Orr home. The 
 original house, built more than a cen¬ 
 tury ago, was an exact copy of the 
 Shore home known as Violet Bank, 
 built a few years earlier but later de¬ 
 stroyed by fire. On Adams street be¬ 
 hind the Orr house is the old Johnson- 
 Wyatt mansion, now occupied by Mr. 
 Barham, where the body of Calhoun 
 lay in state. 
 
 Another attractive old-time mansion 
 of local interest is the West Hill 
 house, with its solid basement and 
 quaint dormer windows. This house 
 was built by the Bollings for the stew¬ 
 ard of their estate, and it faced their 
 long line of tobacco warehouses that 
 stood on West Hill. 
 
 The Residency 
 
 Prison Hill Mansion on Tabb street 
 has for years been one of the inter¬ 
 esting sights of the city, but it is still 
 somewhat a puzzle. So far as may be 
 learned, this handsome two-story 
 wooden mansion, with a lofty stone 
 and brick basement, was formerly 
 used as a residency or official home by 
 some agent of the crown in colonial 
 days. It stood in the midst of spac¬ 
 ious grounds extending from the High 
 School building on the south to the 
 creek on the north. The two stone 
 pillars of the entrance gates still stand 
 at the end of Marshall street. A wind¬ 
 ing driveway led to the front of the 
 house, and two curving staircases led 
 to the porch of the mansion, which 
 was perched high above the stone 
 basement, where may still be seen the 
 cells used for the detention of pris¬ 
 oners. This arrangement of a dwell¬ 
 ing-house over a prison seems strange 
 today, but the same plan may be seen 
 in the sheriff’s house standing in 
 Blandford, which was prison below 
 and residence above. 
 
 The Historians 
 
 The historian, John Daly Burk, had 
 no home of his own, but boarded at 
 the house of Mrs. Swayle (or Swail) 
 on Old Street, near the old LeMoine 
 house. Burk was a lawyer with an of¬ 
 fice on Bollingbrook Street near Phoe¬ 
 nix. He was a great friend of John 
 Randolph, who aided him in securing 
 materials for his history. His famous 
 quarrel with Coquebert at the time of 
 the Berlin and Milan Decrees occurred 
 in the Powell Tavern on Sycamore 
 Street, where the Rosenstock Stores 
 now stand. He fought the duel in a 
 ravine back of the Normal School and 
 was buried with military honors in an 
 unmarked grave at Cedar Grove, the 
 residence of General Joseph Jones in 
 the southwestern part of the city. This 
 land, later the property of A. G. Mcll- 
 waine, was near the Mount Airy Rail¬ 
 road Shops. 
 
 8 
 
The duel was not the only one that 
 interrupted the writing of this Vir¬ 
 ginia history. Skelton Jones, who be¬ 
 gan the fourth volume, also fell on the 
 “field of honor” after writing sixty- 
 three pages, and the history was com¬ 
 pleted by Girardin. 
 
 The second Petersburg historian, 
 often called the Virginia Old Mor¬ 
 tality,. was Charles Campbell. He 
 had his residence here, as his father 
 was the first bookseller of the city. 
 In addition to his excellent History 
 of Virginia, Campbell wrote also a 
 Life of Burk and many antiquarian 
 essays. 
 
 Three other Virginia historians 
 should be mentioned, as they were 
 rectors here. Both William Stith, 
 who wrote a History of Virginia, 
 and Bishop William Meade, who 
 wrote “Old Churches and Families 
 of Virginia,’’ served for a short time 
 as rectors; Stith at Old Blandford 
 in 1739, and Meade at St. Paul’s in 
 1839. A third rector of long ser¬ 
 vice, Phillip Slaughter, wrote the His¬ 
 tory of Bristol Parish and also of St. 
 George’s and of St. Mark’s Parishes. 
 
 The Warriors 
 
 Within the city was also the home 
 of Captain McRae, who led the Peters¬ 
 burg volunteers in the War of 1812, 
 and who won for Petersburg from 
 President Madison the title of “The 
 Cockade City of the Union.” Here is 
 also the home of Colonel F. H. Archer, 
 who led the Petersburg volunteers in 
 the Mexican war, and also commanded 
 the old men and boys on the ninth of 
 June. On Market street is also the 
 residence of General Mahone, the hero 
 of the battle of the Crater. . It is 
 necessary, however, to go outside the 
 city limits to a farm beyond the May- 
 field estate to find the birthplace of 
 the Petersburgher most famous in the 
 war annals of America. Here was 
 born General Winfield Scott, hero of 
 the War of 1812 and of the Mexican 
 War and commander-in-chief of the 
 American forces at the opening of the 
 Civil war. General Scott had a law 
 office in Blandford and later in Peters¬ 
 burg, probably on Bollingbrook street, 
 until he abandoned the law for the 
 army in 1808. That he was not en¬ 
 tirely a hero in the eyes of his fellows, 
 however, is shown by the famous 
 toast of a distinguished Peters¬ 
 burgher, Benjamin Watkins Leigh, 
 
 at the Eagle Tavern dinner, given in 
 honor of General Scott after the War 
 of 1812. In the midst of the chorus 
 of praise of the hero of Chippewa and 
 Lundy’s Lane, Leigh’s simple toast 
 was, “Well, Scott, Here’s to Luck.” 
 
 Two Petersburg stories of General 
 Scott may be added. At Vera Cruz 
 after the Mexican War, he was urged 
 to return home in one of the larger 
 vessels provided for the transport of 
 troops, but generously refused to do 
 so, on the ground that he might thus 
 delay the return home of many a 
 brave soldier anxious for a sight of 
 his dear ones. He embarked on the 
 brig “Petersburg,” of 166 tons, and on 
 the voyage yellow fever broke out 
 and Scott caught the fever and nar¬ 
 rowly escaped death. 
 
 On the other hand may be men¬ 
 tioned the traditions still current, 
 that the general was a pompous man, 
 rather proud of his appearance, and 
 this seems to be borne out by the 
 well authenticated story of the no¬ 
 tice in a Petersburg paper that on a 
 certain day General Scott “may be 
 seen at Powell’s hotel in the full 
 uniform that he wore in the Mexi¬ 
 can War.” 
 
 Civil War Mansions 
 
 Three of the mansions of Peters¬ 
 burg are especially famous in the his¬ 
 tory of the Civil war. These are the 
 Beasley mansion on High street, in¬ 
 teresting as the second headquarters 
 of General Lee; the Seward Mansion 
 on Market street, where occurred the 
 last meeting of Lincoln and Grant 
 before the surrender of Lee; and the 
 Centre Hill mansion, which still shows 
 the effects of the shelling of Battery 
 Number Five, having a cannon-hole 
 in the northern wall and bullet-holes 
 in the attic doors. This was General 
 Hartstuff’s headquarters, and it was 
 here that Lincoln, just after the evacu¬ 
 ation, made his famous mot, “Gen¬ 
 eral Grant seems to have attended 
 sufficiently to the matter of rent.” 
 
 One of the interesting features of 
 this mansion is the underground pas¬ 
 sage, which led out to Henry street 
 and was used as an entrance by visi¬ 
 tors. The broad passage terminated 
 on Henry street in a pavillion or porte 
 cochere, where the visitors dismount¬ 
 ed from their carriages, entering the 
 house on the basement level and go¬ 
 ing upstairs to the parlor floor, in 
 
 9 
 
the English rather than the Ameri¬ 
 can style. Some fifty feet of this pas¬ 
 sage may still be enterd, and it was 
 lighted from above so as to be quite 
 bright and well ventilated. 
 
 The Centre Hill Banquet 
 
 This Centre Hill Mansion, the resi¬ 
 dence of Mr. Charles Hall Davis, was 
 the fitting scene of a notable aftermath 
 of the Civil War, when it was tendered 
 to the city of Petersburg for the banquet 
 and reception to President Taft on the 
 occasion of the dedication of the Hart- 
 ranft Monument at Fort Mahone in 
 honor of the Pennsylvania soldiers of 
 the Civil War. After the parade and 
 dedication ceremonies, an al fresco, lunch¬ 
 eon was served on the Centre Hill lawn 
 to one thousand distinguished guest, 
 seated at a hundred tables of living turf. 
 The speakers’ table extended along the 
 fifty-foot south portico, looking out on 
 the lawn, and here, with Governor Swan¬ 
 son as tostmaster, three notable toasts 
 were given: “Petersburg,” by Hon. Will¬ 
 iam B. Mcllwaine; “Virginia,” by Dr. 
 Edwin A. Alderman, president of the 
 University of Virginia; and “Pennsyl¬ 
 vania,” by Governor Edwin S. Stuart, 
 of Pennsylvania. The city’s guests then 
 passed through the mansion to the north 
 lawn, where President Taft made his 
 eloquent address to twenty thousand 
 people. In the evening a brilliant recept¬ 
 ion and lawn fete followed, when Admiral 
 Sigsbee spoke on the “American Sailor,” 
 and Ambassador Jusserand on the 
 “American Soldier.” This Civil War 
 mansion was a most fitting scene for 
 such a reunion of the Blue and Gray, 
 and the ideal setting, the distinguished 
 guest, and the eloquent speakers, made 
 this the most brilliant banquet ever given 
 in Virginia. 
 
 Four Famous Taverns 
 
 Four old taverns of Petersburg 
 have a part in history. Probably the 
 oldest was the Golden Ball Tavern 
 on Old street, where may. still be 
 seen a part of the old building at 
 the corner of Market street, almost 
 opposite Peter Jones’s Trading Sta¬ 
 tion. Here the British officers were 
 quartered during the Revolution, and 
 here the first famous city banquet 
 was given to President Washington in 
 1791. This visit is also notable for 
 the reason that at Petersburg Wash¬ 
 ington told his only recorded untruth, 
 in fixing his time of departure “before 
 eight” and leaving at five to avoid the 
 
 dust of an escort. At this time the 
 Golden Ball Tavern had become Du- 
 rell’s Tavern, and in 1823 it had be¬ 
 come Tench’s Tavern. It was probably 
 as Tench’s Tavern that it had its iron 
 gong struck at noon by an iron ne¬ 
 gro with an iron mace. Another tav¬ 
 ern of Revolutionary fame was the 
 Long Omary, a mile west of the cen¬ 
 ter of the city, where were the head¬ 
 quarters of the British General 
 O’Hara, who later surrendered Corn¬ 
 wallis’s sword at Yorktown. The 
 third of the historic taverns was 
 Armistead’s, better known later as 
 Powell’s Tavern. General Washing¬ 
 ton is said to have spent the night 
 here, and it is probable that it was 
 here that the banquet to Aaron Burr 
 was given in 1805. Burr had killed 
 Hamilton and was far from popular 
 at the time, and this public banquet 
 in his honor seems strange. Probably 
 it was arranged by the effort and in¬ 
 fluence of Burk, who had been aided 
 by Burr in his escape from the wrath 
 of President Adams at Boston. 
 
 As Burk was a frequenter of Pow¬ 
 ell’s Tavern, the Burr banquet prob¬ 
 ably occurred there. In this connec¬ 
 tion, it may be added that a Peters¬ 
 burg lawyer, a famous wit, who was 
 popular as “Jack” Baker, was one 
 of the counsel of Aaron Burr in his 
 trial at Richmond on the charge of 
 treason on account of the projects 
 undertaken during this trip to the 
 south. 
 
 The last of the four famous tav¬ 
 erns was Niblo’s Tavern on Boiling- 
 brook street. Here it was that the 
 Lafayette banquet was given in 1824 
 and in 1828 the tavern was replaced 
 by Niblo’s Hotel, a sixty-five thous¬ 
 and dollar structure still standing, 
 which was built by William Niblo, 
 afterward proprietor of Niblo’s Gar¬ 
 den in New York. 
 
 Other Taverns 
 
 Of secondary interest were several 
 other taverns. Dodson’s Tavern on 
 High street is memorable for the fact 
 that here Theodosia Burr made fa¬ 
 mous cakes during her stay there 
 with her father. Brewer’s Tavern 
 stood on the southeast corner of Syca¬ 
 more and Bollingbrook streets, and 
 on Lombard street was the Double Inn, 
 just off Sycamore, The Virginia Inn 
 stood on a cross street between Lom¬ 
 bard and Bollingbrook. There was also 
 Worsham’s Tavern on Old street, af- 
 
terward the home of J. B. Edge, whose 
 bell gave the first alarm of the fire 
 of 1826; and Weeks’ Tavern on Syca¬ 
 more street, where Bowman’s stores 
 now stand. This tavern was a con¬ 
 venient stopping place for the coun¬ 
 try people coming into the city 
 through Week’s Cut, now Wythe 
 street. It was at Hannon’s Tavern 
 on Bank street in 1825 that the foun¬ 
 dations of the Mechanics’ Associa¬ 
 tion were laid. 
 
 Third street was the thoroughfare 
 in the olden days and Jack McCray’s 
 eating house stood on the comer of 
 Bollingbrook and Second, just oppo¬ 
 site the present Stratford. But fur¬ 
 ther down Bollingbrook stood the 
 inn of Petersburg that gives a real 
 eighteenth-century aroma to local 
 history. This was the Coffee House 
 of Zip Roberts that stood behind old 
 Phoenix Hall and gave to the cross 
 street from Bollingbrook to the river 
 the name of Coffeehouse Lane. 
 
 The Race Courses 
 
 The people of the city seem to have 
 been a gay and worldly folk much 
 given to pleasure, with two theatres, 
 two parks, a racecourse, and only one 
 poor Methodist church in 1799. The 
 first racecourse seems to have been in 
 Gill Field, and there is an interesting 
 record of a race there when the fam¬ 
 ous horse Brenner went to pieces. 
 Two other racecourses were estab¬ 
 lished by the man from whom Bate’s 
 Spring derives its name. Richard 
 Bates was a contractor who busied 
 himself with the river improvement 
 until the funds were exhausted. Then 
 he ran a lottery and later engaged in 
 the mill business. Failing in these 
 things, he leased Poplar Lawn and 
 established there the second Peters¬ 
 burg racecourse. Still later he estab¬ 
 lished the third and most famous of 
 them all, the Newmarket racecourse, 
 which was known throughout America 
 and where many great races took 
 place. 
 
 The Theatres 
 
 The present Academy of Music is 
 the fourth theatre in the history of the 
 city. Queerly enough, the first definite 
 mention of the first theatre seems to 
 be the account of the Methodist meet¬ 
 ings in the Old Theatre on Old street, 
 near Murray’s Mill. The account is 
 still extant of the evangelistic meet¬ 
 
 ings of Williams, McRoberts and Jar- 
 ratt in this Old Theatre in 1773. 
 They preached with fervor to large 
 congregations, but their meetings 
 were interrupted by the bursting in of 
 doors, the throwing of squibs, and 
 the deluging with water from a fire 
 hose. The second theatre was a poor 
 affair, a small wooden building that 
 stood on Fifth street, behind the old 
 Dunlop place, near the school of Par¬ 
 son Syme. Here the Petersburg 
 Amateur Thespians, in 1803, acted 
 Burk’s play of Bethlem Gabor, and 
 here the actor Placide and his com¬ 
 pany are known to have acted in the 
 same year, when they gave the School 
 for Scandal at a benefit performance. 
 A second play written for the Peters¬ 
 burg Thespians was Nolens Volens, or 
 The Biter Bit, by Everard Hill of 
 Blandford. The Thespians were the 
 best young men of the day, John Mon¬ 
 ro Banister, Townsend Stith, Roger 
 Atkinson Jones, Thomas Bolling Rob¬ 
 ertson, Benjamin Curtis, Richard N. 
 Thweatt, Edwards, Stainback, and 
 others. Among them was the Peters¬ 
 burg poet, John McCreery, who wrote 
 The American Star, the rival of The 
 Star Spangled Banner, and who also 
 wrote with Burk the songs that are 
 said to have given Moore the idea of 
 the Irish Melodies. 
 
 The great playhouse of the city, 
 however, was the Petersburg Theatre 
 built probably about 1815 or 1820 
 on the northwest corner of Bolling¬ 
 brook and Fifth streets. This thea¬ 
 tre was a copy of Covent Garden 
 Theatre in London, with a commodi¬ 
 ous stage, a large pit, a semi-circle 
 of stalls, and two galleries. Junius 
 Brutus Booth is said to have played 
 here his second engagement in 
 America, his first engagement, having- 
 been in the Marshall Theatre in Rich¬ 
 mond. It was due to the money and 
 efforts of a Britisher named Caldwell 
 that this playhouse was built in such 
 handsome style. Mr. Caldwell was 
 a successful merchant of the city, who 
 owned and named the estate at the 
 head of Sycamore street still called 
 Mount Erin. Most of the famous 
 actors of the second quarter of the 
 century played here, and this is the 
 theatre so often mentioned in the an¬ 
 nals of the American stage. It was 
 burned in 1849, however, and there 
 are many interesting facts connected 
 with the hall that succeeded it. 
 
 The LaFayette Ball was given in 
 this third Petersburg theatre. The pit 
 
was floored over, the stage was hung turn from his Arctic expedition, gave 
 with pink and roofed with blue, with a a great lecture and panorama and ex¬ 
 palace scene at the end. The top tier hibited his Eskimo dogs. The third 
 of boxes was filled with evergreens, hall was Library Hall, now the of- 
 reaching to the vaulted roof. The two flees of the Electric company, and this 
 lower tiers of boxes were reserved for was used for many great lectures and 
 the gentlemen until LaFayette had concerts. It was either here or at 
 made the circle of the ladies in the Phoenix Hall that Thackeray gave his 
 rotunda, when he retired to his seat of lecture on the Four Georges. Here 
 honor and ten cotillion sets were were also given famous local events 
 danced at once. This was after the such as the Kirmess of Mischianza 
 banquet in Niblo’s Long Room. and the Congress of Nations. 
 
 The Halls 
 
 Phoenix Hall, like a phoenix from 
 the ashes, rose on the site of the 
 famous theatre. This is the first of 
 three memorable halls of Petersburg. 
 As religion advanced, the theatre de¬ 
 clined, and these three halls played 
 a notable part in the lecture or lyceum 
 period that followed. The democratic 
 convention of 1858 met in Phoenix 
 Hall to nominate John Letcher, the 
 war governor of Virginia. There is 
 mention of a lecture and panorama 
 of the Crimean war in the following 
 year, and here Blind Tom played in 
 the first year of the Civil war. Phoenix 
 Hall was burned in 1866. It was here 
 that the actor, Tyrone Power gave the 
 plays that made him such a favorite 
 in the city. He came frequently; and 
 it is to his pen—or pencil—-that most 
 people attribute the famous lines on 
 Old Blandford Church. Dr. J. H. Clai¬ 
 borne, however, in his “Seventy-five 
 Years in Old Virginia,” gives facts 
 that lend color to the belief that they 
 were written by Miss Henning, a 
 daughter of Chief-Justice Henning, 
 who was afterwards Mrs. Schermer- 
 horn. 
 
 Thus in Phoenix Hall, both before 
 and during the war, occurred many no¬ 
 table affairs. Here Stephen A. Doug¬ 
 las, the “Little Giant,” spoke about 
 1860, and William L, Yancey of Ala¬ 
 bama also made a famous political 
 speech. On April 2nd, 1864, just one 
 year before the evacuation of the city, 
 Miss Estelle’s Dramatic Company 
 played here “The Carpenter of Rouen,” 
 followed by a fascinating danseuse— 
 admission, three dollars. At this time 
 the stock of the Bank of the City of 
 Petersburg was selling at two hundred 
 dollars. 
 
 The second of the memorable halls 
 was the Mechanics’ Hall at the cor¬ 
 ner of Sycamore and Tabb street, 
 built 1839. Here Dr. Kane, on his re- 
 
 Old Hotels 
 
 As the halls succeeded the thea¬ 
 tres, so the hotels succeeded the tav¬ 
 erns and inns. Niblo’s hotel, now the 
 Stratford, was for many years nota¬ 
 ble as the Bollingbrook, where many 
 of the prominent men of the second 
 quarter of the century were guests, 
 and where almost all of the southern 
 leaders were familiar figures during 
 the siege of Petersburg. The Fourth 
 of July oration was often delivered 
 from the balcony of this hotel, in 
 the period after the popularity of 
 Hector’s Spring and before the Pop¬ 
 lar Lawn was used for this purpose. 
 
 One of the most dramatic incidents 
 in the history of Petersburg took 
 place just at the comer where this 
 hotel stands. Here was erected the 
 only Secession Pole ever raised in 
 Petersburg, bearing the Secession 
 flag, called the Bonnie Blue Flag, a 
 blue flag with a single white star. 
 That night a crowd of one hundred 
 men pulled down the pole and de¬ 
 stroyed the flag, one man being killed 
 in the melee. For Petersburg was a 
 strong Union city, sending Union 
 delegates to the Virginia convention, 
 whose votes were not cast for seces¬ 
 sion until President Lincoln published 
 his call for troops. 
 
 Some say that this Secession Pole 
 was further down Bollingbrook Street, 
 at the Library Hall comer, but all 
 agree it was within a block or two of 
 the Hotel. 
 
 An interesting war time story is 
 told in connection with the Long- 
 street banquet given in Bollingbrook 
 hotel during the siege. A gallant Pe¬ 
 tersburg private, fond of fighting and 
 of good cheer but impatient of the 
 routine of camp, had that day “run 
 the block” and come into the city. 
 At the banquet, this prince of good 
 fellows was seated at the right hand 
 of General Longstreet and opposite 
 his corps commander, General A. 
 
 12 
 
P. Hill. During* the dinner, a detail 
 of soldiers appeared at the door, sent 
 to arrest the private, and he was sav¬ 
 ed only by the prompt action of Gen¬ 
 eral Hill, either by writing a pass for 
 him, as some say, or by making him 
 a member of his staff on the spot, as 
 others claim. This was the well- 
 known “Dick” May, of the same fam¬ 
 ily as the John May who ventured 
 with Johnson among the Indians in 
 1790. 
 
 Powell’s Hotel on Sycamore street 
 succeeded Powell’s Tavern in 1843, and 
 was a popular resort until it was 
 destroyed by fire. It was succeeded 
 in turn by the great Iron Front build¬ 
 ing, where provisions were contri¬ 
 buted for the soldiers during the war, 
 by the Christian Association Build¬ 
 ings, and by the present stores. So 
 often has this area been burned over 
 in the last half-century. 
 
 Of like local interest with these 
 hotels and of about the same date 
 was Jarratt’s Hotel, built on the site 
 of Moss’s Tavern, where the A. C. L. 
 upper depot now stands. Here was 
 the terminus of the old Petersburg 
 railroad, chartered in 1830, one of 
 the first railroads in the country, and 
 for many years this was a famous 
 hostelry. Alexander H. Stephens, as 
 a congressman before the war, used 
 to stop here on his way to and from 
 Washington, and here too President 
 Davis stopped on his way to Rich¬ 
 mond to take charge of the Confed¬ 
 erate government there. All of these 
 old hotels did a flourishing business, 
 especially for several decades before 
 the civil war. Petersburg was the 
 center of a most prosperous section, 
 and the planters for miles around 
 would come to the city and spend sev¬ 
 eral weeks during the season. For 
 the city had a season then, with all 
 the diversions for which the state has 
 been famous. As mentioned above, 
 one of the handsome theatres of the 
 south was here, and even in the decade 
 before the war, when there were only 
 the three halls, there was no lack of 
 entertainments both amusing and in¬ 
 structive. Phoenix hall had a regular 
 stock company, and only the theatrical 
 stars were imported to take the prin¬ 
 cipal roles. All these attractions 
 added to the patronage of the hotels. 
 
 A Famous Park 
 
 The oldest of the parks in Petersburg 
 was Poplar Lawn, which keeps its beau¬ 
 
 ty but not the charm of its old name as 
 Central Park. Instead of the beautiful 
 grove of today, however, it was former¬ 
 ly a perfect stretch of greensward, a 
 lawn indeed. 
 
 On Poplar Lawn the Petersburg Vol¬ 
 unteers were encamped in 1812 before 
 they set out for the Canadian border, 
 and on October 21st, 1812, Benjamin 
 Watkins Leigh here presented them with 
 a flag from the ladies of the city. To 
 Poplar Lawn in 1824 came LaFayette 
 and his friends from the banquet at Nib- 
 lo’s Tavern to hear speeches and to lis¬ 
 ten to the songs of four hundred school 
 children from Anderson school. It was 
 either here or at Centre Hill that Judge 
 James H. Gholson on Jan. 2nd, 1847, on 
 the part of the ladies of the city, present¬ 
 ed a flag to Captain F. H. Archer’s com¬ 
 pany on the eve of their departure for 
 the Mexican war, and the members of 
 the Petersburg bar presented a sword 
 to Captain Archer himself. 
 
 The city bought the Lawn for $15,000 
 in 1844, and the Fourth of July parades 
 began and ended here. In fact, all the 
 military companies of the city used to 
 encamp on Poplar Lawn on the evening 
 of the third, and the parade of the Fourth 
 was followed by the reading of the Decla¬ 
 ration of Independence and an oration 
 by some distinguished citizen. The 
 Lawn was not only a drilling-ground 
 for soldiers, but also an open-air forum, 
 where in the old days such orators as 
 Henry Clay addressed the people. 
 
 The most dramatic day in the history 
 of Poplar Lawn was the Ninteenth of 
 April, 1861, immediately after the se¬ 
 cession of Virginia, when six fully equipped 
 companies were enlisted into the service 
 of the Confederacy, leaving Poplar Lawn 
 the next morning for the defense of Nor¬ 
 folk. 
 
 A true story of Poplar Lawn shows the 
 straits to which the city was reduced 
 during the siege. As the Federal shells 
 were falling around the hospital on the 
 Lawn, it was necessary to hoist a hos¬ 
 pital flag there. No such flag of truce 
 could be found in the city, and for lack 
 of any other yellow cloth, the yellow 
 silk petticoat of a patriotic lady of the 
 city was hoisted on the hospital pole. 
 This petticoat is still preserved. 
 
 West End Park, formerly the Fair 
 Grounds, is worthy of mention as the 
 place where the Federal soldiers were 
 encamped during Reconstruction times. 
 Not only both the parks and other open 
 spaces, but also almost all the large 
 buildings, especially the tobacco fact¬ 
 ories and warehouses, were used during 
 the siege either as hospitals or as prisons. 
 
 13 
 
Historic Schools 
 
 Four of the schools of Petersburg are 
 closely connected with its history, and 
 three of them are part of the story of the 
 siege of Petersburg. Earliest of these is 
 “The Academy’ ’ incorporated in 1794 
 and continued until 1835, when all its 
 property was transferred to Anderson 
 Seminary, named in memory of the 
 Scotchman who left a bequest in 1819 
 for the education of the poor of the city. 
 The Academy was succeeded by the 
 Petersburg Classical Academy, which 
 was taught by Principal Saunders in the 
 building since used as the public high 
 school on Union street. 
 
 The first academy is memorable both 
 for its early origin and also for a famous 
 teacher. In the early years of the last 
 century, about 1808, John Davis, an Eng¬ 
 lishman, was a teacher here. He wrote 
 a novel about Pocahontas that was ridi¬ 
 culed by the Edinburgh Review in 1806, 
 and also a volume of Travels in America 
 that was praised by the New York In¬ 
 dependent in 1910, when it was honored 
 with a reprint by Holt. 
 
 The Lancaterian School 
 
 New Year’s Day, 1821, marked a new 
 era in education in Petersburg, for then 
 the first germ idea of general education 
 arrived from over seas and found fertile 
 soil and favoring conditions in this city. 
 The “plan of edu«ation for poor children” 
 reported on the memorable day and 
 adopted by the Common Hall a month 
 later, forms a striking landmark in the 
 history of local education, and marks 
 the beginning of the Anderson Seminary. 
 
 David Anderson, a native Scotland, 
 but long a member of the Common Hall 
 and Chamberlain of the City of Peters¬ 
 burg, left a bequest of some ten thousand 
 dollars for the education of the poor 
 children in “spelling, reading, writing 
 and arithmetic.” A special committee of 
 three reported to the Common Hall, Jan¬ 
 uary first, 1821, that seventy or eighty 
 children were entitled to this training 
 under the will, that twenty dollars per 
 pupil was the price of such tuition, and 
 that eight dollars per pupil was the price 
 of books and “stationary.” Thus the be¬ 
 quest of six hundred dollars per annum 
 seemed insufficient. 
 
 “But on the Lancasterian plan,” the 
 report continues, “it is understood and 
 believed that one Master can attend 
 an hundred children, in the branches pro¬ 
 posed; and carry them forward as rapidly 
 and perhaps more so, than in the ordinary 
 way of teaching, thus making the fund 
 equal to four times its amount in the com¬ 
 
 mon way. This plan has been adopted 
 in most of our cities and large towns and 
 high encomiums have frequently been 
 passed upon it throughout Europe.” 
 
 This Lancasterian Plan was the method 
 of teaching evolved by Joseph Lancaster, 
 the new light in education in the opening 
 of the nineteeth century, the Montessori 
 of a hundred years ago. Lancaster’s 
 efforts to give the poor the rudiments 
 of instruction without fee had brought a 
 thousand children to his Borough Road 
 school in London, founded 1798, and had 
 aroused public interest in his system. The 
 Edinburgh Review called his method 
 “a beautiful and inestimable discovery, 
 a plan now brought very near to perfec¬ 
 tion.” George III encouraged Lancast¬ 
 er, and in 1808 the Royal Lancasterian 
 Institution was founded in England. But 
 Lancaster quarreled with his trustees, 
 set up his private school at Tooting, be¬ 
 came bankrupt, and in 1818 emigrated to 
 America. Here he had a warm reception, 
 giving several courses of lectures in New 
 York and elsewhere, and began to estab¬ 
 lish his system of schools. Thus Ander¬ 
 son’s bequest to the poor children of Pet¬ 
 ersburg came at the very time when 
 Lancaster’s system was being taught in 
 America by Lancaster himself. 
 
 This new system, by which Lancaster 
 claimed that it was possible “to teach 
 ten thousand children to read fluently in 
 from three weeks to three months,” was 
 one of the two “monitorial” methods of 
 instruction of that day. Bell and Lan¬ 
 caster were the two “rival inventors” of 
 this “mutual” method, which really 
 came from the East. Finally Bell’s sys¬ 
 tem was generally adopted in England 
 by the Church of England, while Lan¬ 
 caster’s found favor with the Noncon¬ 
 formists. The three main features of 
 Lancaster’s plan were the use of older 
 scholars as “monitors” or assistant teach¬ 
 ers, the use of a special system of drill 
 and the use of simple material ap¬ 
 pliances—“a few little leaves torn out of 
 spelling-books and pasted on boards, 
 some slates, and a desk spread with sand 
 on which the children wrote with their 
 fiingers.” There are extant interesting 
 pictures of the Lancasterian school-room 
 with the monitors at regular intervals 
 along the walls, each facing a semi-circle 
 of young pupils, and thanks to David 
 Anderson, such a school was founded in 
 Petersburg in 1821. 
 
 Anderson Seminary 
 
 The very details of the founding of 
 Anderson Seminary, give a bright touch 
 of local color. The six hundred dollar in¬ 
 come of the Anderson Fund was combined 
 
 14 
 
with the two hundred dollar income of the 
 Literary Fund, total eight hundred, and 
 the Common Hall, 1821, appointed twelve 
 trustees, who were allowed to spend for 
 the first year six hundred and forty dol¬ 
 lars for house and a teacher “who will 
 qualify himself to teach on this Lancast- 
 erian plan” and one hundred and sixty for 
 “books, forms, lessons, and stationery 
 for seventy scholars.” The teacher, 
 however, was to reserve for himself the 
 privilege of taking other pupils for pay. 
 The great success of the plan is shown by 
 the fact that soon afterward (in 1824), 
 four hundred pupils of the school gathered 
 on Poplar Lawn to sing patriotic songs 
 on the occasion of the visit of General 
 LaFayette, and by the further fact that 
 about a decade later the Petersburg Aca¬ 
 demy, founded in 1794, was absorbed by 
 the Anderson Seminary, as already 
 stated. Thus Anderson Seminary, nearly 
 a century old, is the link connecting 
 the local public school system of to-day 
 with the beginnings of the movement 
 for general education in America. It is 
 most fitting that the one monument 
 erected in Blandford churchyard by the 
 “Corporation of Petersburg,” is “Sacred 
 to the Memory of David Anderson, a 
 Benefactor and a Friend of Man.” 
 
 Schools for Boys 
 
 Two private schools for boys of the 
 second half of the last century have an 
 especial interest to the student of local 
 history. On Sycamore street just above 
 Central park is the one-story building 
 that was the schoolhouse of Mr. George 
 E. Christian during the Civil War. Here 
 on fateful Ninth of June, 1864, the boys 
 of Christian’s school were preparing 
 their French lessons, not knowing that 
 their teacher, Prof. Staubly, lay dead 
 on the Rives farm, two miles away, where 
 he had aided in the brave defence that 
 delayed General Kautz and saved the 
 city for nearly a year. 
 
 Directly opposite the Park on the same 
 street, at the corner of Fillmore, is the 
 vacant lot where stood after the war the 
 wooden building of McCabe’s University 
 School. This building was afterwards 
 bought by the Christian church and re¬ 
 moved to Washington street, where it 
 stands today opposite Pine street. The 
 University School was known through¬ 
 out the land for a third of a century. 
 Although is was established after the 
 war, it is part of the war history of the 
 city for the reason that its distinguished 
 head-master was the gallant young ad¬ 
 jutant of Pegram’s Battery and later 
 became the historian of the Battle of 
 the Crater in his eloquent address before 
 the Army of Northern Virginia. 
 
 Southern College 
 
 The third school that is a part of the 
 war record of the city is the Southern 
 Junior College, whose buildings stand 
 on Sycamore Street, diagonally across 
 from Central Park. This institution is 
 historic through the fact that it was char¬ 
 tered by the Confederate legislature and 
 carried on its work of training young 
 women during the siege of the city. 
 
 On the same memorable ninth of June 
 1864, the founder and president of the 
 college, Williams T. Davis, like Prof. 
 Staubly, was in Archer’s command in the 
 Rives farm fight in defence of the city, 
 while three of his sons were in other com¬ 
 mands. It was probably because of his 
 absence that the college girls were group¬ 
 ed on the front piazza on this June day. 
 At any rate, it is a fact that as Graham’s 
 battery of four guns came dashing and 
 swaying up Sycamore Street, with the 
 men on the caissons clinging for life as 
 they rushed to drive back Kautz’s ad¬ 
 vance up the New Road, they were cheer¬ 
 ed by the college girls with a spirit and 
 strength that made the cheer audible 
 above the rumble of the cannon. On went 
 the guns, the two brass howitzers turning 
 into the New Road and the two rifled 
 guns going into position on the crest of the 
 Delectable Heights in time to repel the 
 attack. 
 
 It is said that in this attack Graham’s 
 Battery fired thirty-nine rounds without 
 sponging. 
 
 A Soldier’s Dairy 
 
 In “Confederate War Talks,” a member 
 of Graham’s Battery gives the following 
 account of this episode: “As our battery 
 galloped up Sycamore street, the ladies 
 waved their handkerchiefs and the boys 
 in the battery responded with cheers. 
 The Southern Female College building 
 was filled with ladies, who waved hand¬ 
 kerchiefs while we cheered, and just here 
 a pigeon, on its wild fight in the air, dart¬ 
 ed down towards the moving battery, see- 
 ing which several of the old veterans gently 
 ducked their heads, thinking the bird a 
 ball from one of enemy’s guns, as we 
 could hear the firing in the distance over 
 the hills.” 
 
 Southern College Again 
 
 Through a long part of the siege, the 
 work of the college was carried on daily, 
 the hours of lecture being arranged so 
 girls might not go to and fro during the 
 fixed hours of bombardment. The bomb¬ 
 proof cellar is still to be seen to which 
 the resident students retired during the 
 
shelling. The spot in the grounds is still 
 shown where the shell fell during the 
 siege, and the other spot where the silver 
 was buried in anticipation of the capture 
 of the city. Finally the danger became 
 so great that the school was removed to 
 Danville, where it was located when the 
 last meeting of the Confederate cabinet 
 was held there. Immediately after the 
 war, the college was again established 
 in its old home in Petersburg. 
 
 A College Story 
 
 Many interesting stories of war times 
 are told about the College. One of the 
 most amusing is the account of the wedd¬ 
 ing-dinner on the occasion of the marriage 
 of the president’s eldest daughter to a 
 Confederate Major during the siege of 
 Petersburg. In spite of the long siege, a 
 banquet was spread and all the guests 
 were seated, when Anderson, the butler, 
 was called out to answer a loud riging of 
 the door-bell. 
 
 Some of the gay and hungry young 
 blades of a New Orleans Company, 
 brothers-in-arms to the Major and friends 
 of the family, having heard the news of 
 the wedding had left the lines and “run 
 the block,” and came en masse to the 
 feast. So stately old Anderson made 
 the tragic announcement: “Marse Will¬ 
 iams, de Wash-nun Artillery in de par¬ 
 lor.” 
 
 A Ninth of June Story 
 
 The same Anderson was on the lines 
 with President Wms. T. Davis on the 
 Ninth of June. It is not clear whether 
 he went as the body servant that some¬ 
 times accompanied even the private 
 soldier, or whether he was sent to bear 
 some message or food. At any rate, as 
 the afternoon wore on and sounds of 
 fighting were borne to the anxious wife, 
 she saw Anderson approaching without 
 his master. Full of dread, she cried: 
 “Anderson, what have you done with 
 Mr. Davis? Why have you left him?” 
 “Law, Miss Carrie,” was the reply, “de 
 bullets was flyin’ en Marse Williams say 
 dat warn’t no place for a nigger, en he 
 sont me home.” 
 
 An Intensive Study 
 
 An intensive study of any spot in 
 Petersburg is sure to reveal interesting 
 facts. As an illustration of this, the 
 history of the grounds and buildings of 
 Southern College may be traced. 
 
 This site was not included in the origi¬ 
 nal 1748 charter of Abraham Jones, for 
 the reason that it was in “Ravenscroft,” 
 the settlement embraced within the tri¬ 
 angle formed to-day by Halifax, Syca¬ 
 more and Shore Streets. 
 
 The Petersburg Poorhouse 
 
 Thus it was not until the second char¬ 
 ter of 1748 that this site became part of 
 Petersburg, and it was later chosen as 
 the location for the poorhouse. It was 
 because of this fact that Tulip Lane on 
 the east of Sycamore Street could not 
 keep a straight course, as the town 
 authorities would not condemn a right 
 of way through their own poorhouse, 
 but deflected the “Lane” to one side, 
 forming the present College Place. This 
 early use of this site for a poorhouse has 
 caused many a merry jest about rever¬ 
 sion to original use, in view of the fact 
 that the teaching profession is an im¬ 
 pecunious one. 
 
 Magnate’s Home and College 
 
 About a third of a century later, how¬ 
 ever, Mr. Henry D. Bird, first an en¬ 
 gineer of construction and later president 
 of the Petersburg Railroad, bought the 
 property and erected on it one of the 
 handsome homes of the city. This is 
 now the nucleus of the Main building of 
 Southern College. 
 
 In the fifties, the part of the property 
 on the corner of College Place was bought 
 by the Methodists as the site of the 
 Petersburg Female Sollege. Surprising 
 to relate, the building was designed and 
 prepared in the North and shipped to 
 Petersburg and erected as an ideal Col¬ 
 lege building. 
 
 A Gradual Growth 
 
 In 1862, Mr. Williams T. Davis, then 
 president of Petersburg Female College, 
 bought the Henry D. Bird House in order 
 to establish an independent college, char¬ 
 tered in 1863 as the Southern Female Col¬ 
 lege. In the seventies he added the 
 lecture-room building. On his death in 
 1888, his son succeeded him and in the 
 nineties he added to the original build¬ 
 ings. Meantime the Petersburg Female 
 College had passed, and the property 
 was used as private residences. Soon 
 after nineteen hundred, however, it was 
 purchased for use as part of Southern 
 College, and is now the College Annex. 
 
 Thus the College site in Petersburg 
 on Sycamore Street facing Tulip Alley 
 was originally in “Ravenscroft” on 
 “Walnut Lane” facing “Tulip Lane,” 
 and since that time it has held a poor- 
 house, a railway magnate’s house, two 
 rival schools, and the present College. 
 Equally striking details of local history 
 may probably be learned from any other 
 site chosen at random in the city. 
 
 16 
 
Historic Churches 
 
 Several of the churches of Petersburg 
 should have special mention. St. Paul’s 
 Episcopal church, the child of old Bris¬ 
 tol Parish church, was first built in 1802 
 on the site of the present court-house. 
 It was later moved to Sycamore Street, 
 opposite Franklin, and when this church 
 was burned in 1853, the present edifice 
 on Union Street was built. The moving 
 from Blandford was in the time of Parson 
 Syme, to whom a memorial tablet should 
 be placed in Old Blandford. Before the 
 church of 1802 was built, Cameron and 
 Syme preached on alternate Sundays in 
 the Blandford church and in the Peters¬ 
 burg court-house, but to small congre¬ 
 gations, as religion was then at a low ebb 
 in this section. It was in this “new brick 
 church,” built 1802-6, that Burk deliver¬ 
 ed an oration five weeks before his death. 
 
 On Union Street, where the Roper 
 warehouse now stands, was the most 
 famous historic church building of Peters¬ 
 burg. This primacy was due not only to 
 the fact that this church was the child of 
 the first church of any denomination in 
 Petersburg, the old Methodist church 
 that stood perhaps first on Old and after¬ 
 ward on Market street at the junction of 
 Friend street, but especially to the fact 
 that here was held the first General Con¬ 
 ference of the Methodist Church, South, 
 after its separation from the (Northern) 
 Methodist church. Thus this old build¬ 
 ing was the scene of the organization of 
 the large body of Secessionists that still 
 maintains a separate existence. At this 
 conference, Bishop Andrews presided, 
 and there was a dramatic moment when 
 Bishop Soule, the general superintendent 
 of the whole Methodist church of the 
 country, announced his allegiance to the 
 Southern branch of the church. The con¬ 
 gregation of this church afterward built 
 Washington street Methodist church, 
 and the Union street building became 
 a negro church until it was torn down. 
 
 The original building of Tabb street 
 Presbyterian church is now A. P. Hill 
 Camp hall. A new church was built 
 directly opposite, and when this was 
 burned, the present edifice was built. 
 This church is historic through memor¬ 
 able sermons during the secession times 
 and the building itself, though dignified 
 and beautiful in its combination of Clas¬ 
 sic and Gothic types of architecture, 
 drew a humorous reference from Max 
 O’Rell on his lecture-trip to Petersburg. 
 In “A Frenchman in America,” he speaks 
 of it as a Greek temple with a steeple, 
 and compares it to a Roman senator with 
 a toga and a stovepipe hat. The Second 
 Presbyterian church on Washington 
 
 street is also historic through the fact 
 that it was built during the Civil War, 
 the tower of the old church on Baltimore 
 Row on High street being used during 
 the late years of the war as a shot tower. 
 Grace Episcopal church, on the other 
 hand, having moved from the brick 
 church on Old Street to worship in the 
 basement of the new church just before 
 hostilities began, was not able to com¬ 
 plete the High street building until 1870. 
 The First Baptist church on Washington 
 is memorable as having been built to re¬ 
 place the one struck by lightning and 
 burned in 1865. The first church of the 
 Baptists in the city is now the rear of the 
 Builders’ Supply Company building, and 
 the second Baptist church built in the 
 city stood at the corner of Market and 
 High streets. 
 
 The Public Buildings 
 
 The first courthouse stood on the site 
 of the present clerk’s office, and the old 
 wooden building is still preserved across 
 the river in Ettrick. The handsome 
 courthouse of today is said to have been 
 modeled after the designs of Sir Charles 
 Christopher Wren. It was in the old 
 wooden courthouse that Burk delivered 
 his oration, still extant, on the 4th of 
 March, 1803, to celebrate the election of 
 Jefferson, but it was in the present court¬ 
 house that there were stirring events in 
 Reconstruction times, when a Federal 
 officer reversed his decision in one min¬ 
 ute, leaving the cit> on the same night. 
 
 The Mechanics’ Association building, 
 succeeded by the present steel structure, 
 has already been mentioned as Mechanics 
 Hall, but it was historic also through the 
 story of the origin of the Association it¬ 
 self. It is the one permanent result of 
 the visit of LaFayette in 1824. The 
 mechanics of the town had gathered to 
 plan the erection of a triumphal arch to 
 LaFayette, when the news came that 
 he would arrive the next day, too soon 
 for their purpose, but the assembled 
 workmen united themselves into a guild 
 that is flourishing today. The Associa¬ 
 tion library and museum deserve mention 
 as among the best antiquarian collect¬ 
 ions in Virginia. As a benevolent asso¬ 
 ciation, it must yield the palm for early 
 historic birth to the Blandford Lodge of 
 Masons, established in 1757 as the third 
 lodge in America. 
 
 Interesting sidelights of history are 
 given in the records of the Mechanics’ 
 Association. The election of three min¬ 
 isters as honorary members of the Asso¬ 
 ciation in 1826 marks the religious revival. 
 These were Rev. Andrew Syme of the 
 Episcopal church, Rev. Benj. H. Rice of 
 
 17 
 
the Presbyterian church, and Rev. Min¬ 
 ton Thrift of the Methodist church, who 
 wrote in 1845 an incomplete history of 
 the city. His estate on Sycamore Street, 
 between Franklin and Washington, was 
 known as Thrift’s Garden. Two other 
 honorary members of the Association 
 should be mentioned—John Niblo, who 
 was elected in 1828, the year in which 
 Niblo’s Hotel was built, and Elihu 
 Burritt, the “Learned Blacksmith,” who 
 was thus honored in 1843, perhaps after 
 lecturing here. 
 
 The Exchange building on Bank street 
 represents a futile effort made in 1839 to 
 establish a regular produce exchange 
 here. This enterprise lanquished with a 
 slight flurry of success in 1858, until it 
 was finally suspended before the war. 
 During the war, this was the home of 
 the Bank of the City of Petersburg, 
 which ended with the war. The only 
 bank that lived through the troublous 
 time was the Petersburg Savings and 
 Insurance Company. 
 
 Two other banks on this street occu¬ 
 pied respectively the site of the present 
 Academy building and the same build¬ 
 ing now occuiped by Cuthbert Bros. The 
 wide space on the sidewalk in front of this 
 was left for the guard house that was be¬ 
 fore the bank in those days. On Bank 
 street was also the office of Dr. Joseph 
 E. Cox, who perished in the great snow 
 of 1857, hence called Cox’s Snow. Men¬ 
 tion has already been made of the Lib¬ 
 rary Association building on Boiling- 
 brook street, which was burned in 1878 
 and afterward rebuilt. This association 
 was chartered in 1853, and its library 
 was a very valuable one. 
 
 Story of the Streets 
 
 The history of Petersburg is written 
 in a general way in the names of its 
 streets, although at first sight these 
 names seem a hopeless jumble of nature, 
 biography, mythology, and the Bible. 
 There are, of course, the usual proprie¬ 
 tary names of Bolling, Jones, Gill, Tabb 
 and Shore. In regular order of place and 
 time, however, four marked divisions of 
 streets may be traced, the practical, the 
 patriotic, the classic, and the Biblical. 
 
 The early settlers, busy with practical 
 affairs, gave to the streets names that 
 were simple indicants, such as High and 
 Low, River and Market, Sycamore and 
 Oak. As the town spread southward 
 from the river at the time of the revolu¬ 
 tion and afterward, a furore of patriotism 
 seems to have seized the inhabitants, 
 and thus the next range of streets includes 
 Henry and Franklin, Washington and 
 LaFayette, Adams and Jefferson, Wythe 
 
 and Marshall, Harrison and Fillmore, 
 Clinton and Webster, with a general 
 flourish in Liberty street. Then as the 
 tide of patriotic feeling abated in the 
 wrangle of parties and sections, probably 
 near the middle of the last century, the 
 list of national names came to an abrupt 
 close. 
 
 However, as the tide of population 
 still spread southward toward that part 
 of the city called by LaFayette “The 
 Delectable Heights,” new names had to 
 be found, and probably some alumnus of 
 the old Petersburg Academy, founded 
 in 1794, or some new-fleged graduate of 
 the University of Virginia, founded in 
 1825, showed his classical knowledge by 
 suggesting to the ^Petersburg proprietors 
 or powers the names of mythology. Thus 
 the third range of streets bears such 
 names as Mars and Apollo, Mercury and 
 Cupid, and other heathen gods. Prob¬ 
 ably the religious revival put an end to 
 this honoring of the heathern divinities, 
 as the fourth range of streets, on the very 
 Heights, has entirely orthodox names in 
 St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke and 
 St. John. 
 
 Halifax street was the road leading 
 out to Halifax, North Carolina, but for 
 one square it retains its old name of Oak 
 street. One of the quaintest streets in 
 the city has three names in a quarter- 
 mile stretch. This was Back street in 
 the early days, but it was later given the 
 aristocratic English name of Lombard, 
 as fashion moved over from Blandford. 
 After crossing Sycamore street, however, 
 it degenerates into business as Bank, and 
 rises into residential sections as High. 
 As Blandford, once a rival but now a 
 suburb, had preempted the name of Main 
 street, the city named its main thorough¬ 
 fare Sycamore street from the two syca¬ 
 mores that once stood at the junction 
 with Old street. This street was former¬ 
 ly Sycamore only as far up as Oak street, 
 where its name changed to Walnut, a 
 name fortunately preserved in Walnut 
 Hill across the new viaduct at the head 
 of Sycamore street. In like manner, 
 Phoenix street today preserves the name 
 of Old Phoenix Hall. 
 
 This march of Sycamore Street south¬ 
 ward from the River to the Heights 
 makes an interesting study in old records. 
 At first the name seems to have a mere 
 foothold from the Old Market to the foot 
 of the present street, all Sycamore being 
 then known as Walnut Lane. Just as the 
 westward march of the English drove 
 back the Indians, however, so the ad¬ 
 vance of Sycamore Street pushed the 
 name of Walnut further and further South. 
 In its second phase, Sycamore Street ex¬ 
 tended only as far as Back (or Lombard) 
 
Street, later it advanced to Powell’s 
 Tavern, then it extended up to Weeks’s 
 Tavern, and finally it reached The 
 Heights. Thus Sycamore Street, after 
 crawling two squares in its infancy, took 
 a boyish hop to Tabb Street, a youthful 
 skip to Oak Street, and a full man’s jump 
 to The Heights. 
 
 The Blandford streets also deserve 
 mention. Here too are found, of course, 
 a few proprietary names, such as Burch, 
 Mingea, Poythress, and Taylor, but the 
 two streets parallel with Main are Church 
 street and Little Church street. It is 
 an amusing thought that although these 
 devout names were given, it was necces- 
 sary to hold a lottery to help pay for the 
 building of the old Blandford church. 
 Main street, like Duke of Gloucester 
 street in Williamsburg, was laid out in 
 princely style. It was ninety feet wide, 
 and at the Courthouse Square it broad¬ 
 ened out one hundred feet on each side, 
 making a generous square. There were 
 hospitable homes along these generous 
 streets, the old Haxall House marking 
 perhaps the limit of the fashionable re¬ 
 sidence section before the exodus to 
 Petersburg about 1800. 
 
 PART IV—CIVIL WAR HISTORY 
 
 The Battlefields 
 
 A quarter of a mile beyond Blandford 
 is the Crater, the most interesting point 
 in the line of intrenchment thirty-five 
 miles in length which held the hopes of 
 the Confederacy in 1864-65. Petersburg’s 
 great war fame rests upon the two facts 
 that here occurred the longest and blood¬ 
 iest seige in American history and that 
 here occurred the most spectacular sin¬ 
 gle event of the Civil war, the explosion 
 of the Burnside mine. For ten months 
 the two armies of the Civil War, the 
 Army of Northern Virginia and the Army 
 of the Potomac, were here pitted in hero¬ 
 ic combat. The line of intrenchment is 
 still practically intact through a great 
 part of its length, and at the Crater it¬ 
 self a well-preserved battlefield, scarred 
 and monumented, is spread out like a 
 map. 
 
 The Monuments 
 
 Thus the Crater battefield offers won¬ 
 derful opportunities for the study of an 
 actual battle of the Civil War. The 
 fortifications stand untouched and the 
 Crater itself remains just as it was left 
 when the Federal dead were transferred 
 from it to the National cemetery five 
 miles distant. The lines of the two arm¬ 
 ies were so close together that a stone 
 
 might be tossed from one into the other. 
 The line of the excavation of the Burn¬ 
 side Pennsylvania miners may still be 
 traced from the Federal lines to the 
 point of explosion under the Elliott Sal¬ 
 ient. The open fields and the rolling and 
 wooded country still show the line of the 
 covered way by which the Confederate 
 troops advanced to recapture the lines 
 after the explosion. On the Griffith farm 
 itself, where the Crater is located there 
 is a wonderfully interesting museum of 
 the war relics. Along the road are 
 markers placed by the A. P. Hill Camp, 
 of Confederate Veterans, and the fields 
 are dotted with granite monuments and 
 markers erected by the Northern Posts. 
 Especially noticeable are the stately 
 monuments of Massachusetts and Penn¬ 
 sylvania, which were unveiled with 
 great ceremony by the governors and 
 veterans of those States. 
 
 Around the Lines 
 
 In the immediate vicinity of the Crater 
 lie numerous battle-fields, and a drive 
 “around the lines” is both interesting 
 and instructive. Two features of inter¬ 
 est are a well-preserved “bomb-proof” 
 that may still be entered, and the under¬ 
 ground passage on the Davis farm not 
 far from the two famous forts near the 
 Crater, Fort Mahone (Fort Hell) and 
 Fort Sedgwick (Fort Damnation) 
 
 Just across the Jerusalem Plank Road 
 from this underground passage is the 
 modest marker erected to commemorate 
 the citizen-soldiers’ fight of the Ninth of 
 June, 1864. 
 
 The Four Lines 
 
 Roughly speaking, there were four lines 
 of fortifications around Petersburg in the 
 Civil War, two Confederate and two 
 Federal. The first Confederate line was 
 built by Captain Dimmock, and this 
 Dimmock line extends from the river at 
 Skipwith and Puddledock all around the 
 city back to the river at the Locks, the 
 batteries being numbered from one to 
 sixty-two. When the Federals took Bat¬ 
 tery Number Five, General Beauregard 
 built the second and inner line of Con¬ 
 federate fortifications. The Federal 
 line in front of the city thus embraced 
 part of the Dimmock line, but it was ex¬ 
 tended to the Confederate right until 
 both lines reached for miles to Hatcher’s 
 Run. This Federal line was thus the 
 third circumvallation. After the Cattle 
 Raid, however, when Rooney Lee made 
 his raid to the rear and carried off thous¬ 
 ands of cattle, General Grant built a 
 fourth line, this time a reverse line fac- 
 
 19 
 
mg to the rear so as to prevent an attack 
 from that quarter. This reverse line 
 joined the Main line of fortifications 
 about Fort Fisher, and between them 
 ran Grant’s military railroad. A sketch 
 of the entrenched lines shows between 
 thirty and forty forts on these lines of 
 Grant’s army south of the Appomattox. 
 
 Three Points of Interest 
 
 As the Crater and the monuments form 
 a focus of interest on the east of the city, 
 so there are three points of special inter¬ 
 est on the west, showing the gradual 
 swing of the battle line to the south and 
 west until Lee’s lines of supplies were cut. 
 
 The first of these is Rohoic Dam, 
 where the pent waters of a stream were 
 used to strengthen two miles of the worn 
 Confederate line. This same device had 
 already been used on a smaller scale in 
 the Gracie Dam on the east of the city. 
 The second and more famous spot is Fort 
 Gregg, near the Central Hospital, the 
 scene of one of the most gallant defences 
 in all history. There were only two hund¬ 
 red and fifty Confederates in Fort Gregg, 
 but when it fell at seven o’clock on the 
 fateful morning of April the second, 1865, 
 over five hundred of the Federals had 
 fallen before it, and only thirty defend¬ 
 ers were left. The third and most sacred 
 spot is shown by a marker on the Din- 
 widdie road about three miles from the 
 city, where General A. P. Hill was killed 
 while riding in front of his lines. In 
 memory of this great soldier, who gave 
 his life for the city, the local camp of 
 Confederate Veterans is called the A. P. 
 Hill Camp. 
 
 Summary of The Siege 
 
 Petersburg was the cardinal point of 
 the Civil War in its last year. All the 
 great war moves hinged here. Even the 
 distant military movements of this cru¬ 
 cial period “pivoted” on the Cockade 
 City. The wide sweep of the subsidary 
 operations is most impressive. Early’s 
 raid on Washington and Sheridan’s raid 
 in the valley were both undertaken with 
 reference to Petersburg and ended at 
 Petersburg. Even Sherman’s march to 
 the sea became finally an advance on 
 Petersburg, and Johnson’s fight at Golds¬ 
 boro was to protect Petersburg. 
 
 The Varied Strategy 
 
 But it is the varied strategy of the 
 siege itself that makes Petersburg unique 
 in our war annals. Surprise attacks, 
 sustained assaults, pitched battles, feints 
 
 and diversions, an underground explos¬ 
 ion and an artificial lake, trench and sap— 
 every artifice of war was employed. 
 The Petersburg terrain was the arena of 
 the greatest “hammer and rapier” duel 
 in history. Grant’s sledge-hammer blow 
 dented, but did not crush the defense, 
 and Lee’s rapier thrusts could reach no 
 vital part of his opponent’s line. Grant 
 had to “move by the left,” and Lee’s 
 line “stretched so long as to break.” 
 Surely the central area of this historic 
 combat should be preserved intact. Not 
 Waterloo nor Gettysburg is more sacred 
 ground. 
 
 The Thirteen Battles 
 
 Of the thirteen battles outside the 
 breastworks here may be mentioned in 
 the order of time Rives’s Salient, Bat¬ 
 tery Number Five, Avery’s Farm, Wel¬ 
 don Railroad, The Crater, Fort Wads¬ 
 worth, Fort Steadman, Fort Mahone, 
 Fort Gregg, and Fort Fisher. As a study 
 of masterly attack and defense, neither 
 Yorktown nor Vicksburg may be com¬ 
 pared to Petersburg. It is perhaps only 
 in Wellington’s Peninsular Campaign 
 that such bravery and persistence in at¬ 
 tack and such heroic valor and devotion 
 in defense may be found. And the im¬ 
 pression that remains with the visitor 
 fifty years after the battles were fought 
 is not one of regret or apology, but rather 
 one of pride that here, where their fath¬ 
 ers achieved their independence, two 
 armies, composed of the sons of the same 
 indomitable race, held the world in awe 
 and Fate itself in suspense with their 
 Titanic struggle. 
 
 Civil War Hospitals 
 
 There were seven large hospitals 
 in Petersburg during the last year 
 of the war. The best equipped was 
 the Confederate Hospital on Wash¬ 
 ington at the corner of Jones, where 
 a large tobacco factory was utiliz¬ 
 ed for this purpose. The Fair 
 Grounds Hospital was in West End 
 Park and Mcllwaine’s Grove, and 
 there was also a hospital establish¬ 
 ed later in Poplar Lawn, or Cen¬ 
 tral Park. 
 
 Four other hospitals were estab¬ 
 lished in factories or warehouses; 
 the North Carolina in Cameron’s 
 factory, the Virginia in Watson’s 
 and McGill’s factory, the South Car¬ 
 olina in Maclin’s factory, and the 
 Ladies’ Hospital on Bollingbrook 
 and Second Streets. These four 
 hospitals had to be abandoned after 
 
the first month of the siege on ac¬ 
 count of the shelling, and the regu¬ 
 lar work of caring for the sick and 
 wounded fell to the Confederate 
 and Fair Grounds hospitals, while 
 Poplar Lawn was used on occasions. 
 Dr. John Herbert Claiborne was in 
 charge of all these military hos¬ 
 pitals. He tells how he had authority 
 to draw requisitions “for cotton 
 yawn and snuff,” when Confederate 
 money would not buy the necessary 
 supplies for the sick and wounded 
 soldiers. 
 
 A Vivid Picture 
 
 Dr. Claiborne also tells of the day 
 of the evacuation, the second of 
 April, when the lines were broken on 
 the Dinwiddie Plank Road and the 
 fierce fighting was going on at Fort 
 Gregg. The Federals had already 
 advanced near the Whitworth House, 
 now the Central Hospital, and ran¬ 
 dom bullets were falling in the Fair 
 Grounds hospital. He gives a vivid 
 picture of the convalescents leaving 
 the danger zone and pictures the 
 surgeons and attaches “resorting to 
 leeward of the large trees” for pro¬ 
 tection. 
 
 Even the New Market building 
 was used as a “half-way hospital” 
 for cases needing prompt treatment, 
 and citizens still tell of the grisly 
 sight of “piles of arms and legs” 
 made by the surgeons. One citizen, 
 a Civil War youngster, tells how an 
 amputated arm, thrown carelessly 
 aside by the surgeon, struck him and 
 the hand grasped his leg by reflex 
 action, holding fast for a full square 
 during his wild flight. 
 
 Other temporary hospitals were 
 doubtless established from time to 
 time. On the day of the Crater 
 fight, Mahone’s field hospital was 
 established on the New Road, where 
 it crosses Lieutenant Run. Mr. Put¬ 
 nam Stith and Mr. Richard B. Davis, 
 a brother of the writer, both of 
 whom were wounded at the Crater, 
 give amusing stories of the day. 
 
 Three Hospital Stories 
 
 Mr. Davis says that at this New 
 Road bridge, General Mahone gave 
 orders in about these words: “Boys, 
 leave everything behind but your 
 shirts and muskets, for we are going 
 to fight like h—1 today.” This ac¬ 
 count is in strong contrast to the 
 language of Judge D. M. Bernard, 
 another participant. He says: “Here 
 we were ordered to doff our knap¬ 
 
 sacks, et cetera, and get ready for 
 action.” This account is the more 
 polite, but the verbatim report of 
 Mr. Davis is more vivid. 
 
 Mr. Stith tells how he sat down 
 to rest behind a tree on Hannon’s 
 Hill, as he was returning wounded 
 to this field hospital, and heard a 
 groan from behind another tree, 
 where “Dick” Davis was resting. 
 Together they made their way to 
 the ambulance and were sent to the 
 Brigade hospital at Mcllwaine’s 
 Grove, where Dr. James W. Clai¬ 
 borne was in charge. “In less than 
 half an hour after we got there,” 
 says he, “Professor W. T. Davis, 
 Dick’s father, arrived with a bottle 
 of home-made wine in each hand— 
 that wine saved two lives.” 
 
 Another Crater incident, told by 
 Judge D. M. Bernard, may be told 
 here. He says that on that after¬ 
 noon he saw “the happiest man I 
 had ever seen before or have ever 
 seen since.” His hair, face, beard, 
 clothes were matted with red mud, 
 but “his eyes were happy.” He had 
 been buried and stunned by the 
 Crater explosion, and when he came 
 to himself he thought he was in his 
 grave. After hours of frantic work, 
 he dug his way out, “and he was 
 happy.” 
 
 Origin of Memorial Day 
 
 The Petersburg Memorial Associa¬ 
 tion, formed by the ladies of Peters¬ 
 burg in 1866, was the first Memorial 
 Association in America, and from it 
 sprang the movement establishing 
 the National Memorial Day. Mrs. 
 John A. Logan, of Illinois, visited 
 Petersburg some years after the war 
 and learned of the memorial exer¬ 
 cises of the 9th of June. She in¬ 
 terested her husband, General John 
 A. Logan, a member of Congress, 
 and he in turn interested the Grand 
 Army of the Republic and Congress 
 itself in the movement that estab¬ 
 lished May 30th as National Decora¬ 
 tion Day. 
 
 Civil War Historians 
 
 Several Petersburg writers have 
 done valuable work in Civil War 
 history, especially as related to 
 Petersburg. 
 
 Special mention is made elsewhere 
 of Mr. Anthony Keiley’s brilliant lit¬ 
 tle book, “In Vinculis,” and of the 
 eloquent address of Captain W. 
 
Gordon McCabe on the Battle of the 
 Crater. 
 
 First after these should be named 
 Mr. George S. Bernard, an eminent 
 lawyer and a Confederate veteran. 
 He collected and edited a valuable 
 series of war reminiscences by mem¬ 
 bers of the A. P. Hill Camp of 
 Petersburg. These papers were pub¬ 
 lished in 1892 under the modest title, 
 ‘‘War Talks of Confederate Vet¬ 
 erans,and the book is a monument 
 to his ability and industry, as well 
 as a striking exhibit of the heroism 
 and culture of these Petersburg 
 veterans. In any history of Peters¬ 
 burg the “War Talks” should have 
 more than passing notice. 
 
 “Confederate War Talks” 
 
 Mr. George S. Bernard contributed 
 the paper on the “Maryland Cam¬ 
 paign of 1862,” which followed Dr. 
 J. M. Pilcher’s account of the “Early 
 Days of the War.” Ex-Governor 
 William E. Cameron wrote of “Chan- 
 cellorsville” and Mr. Simon Steward 
 told of his “Escape From Point 
 Lookout.” Mr. John R. Turner told 
 the part taken by Mahone’s Brigade 
 in the “Battle of the Wilderness.” 
 
 Colonel Fletcher H. Archer, a 
 veteran of the Mexican War and 
 colonel in command of the Peters¬ 
 burg militia on the 9th of June, 
 1864, contributed a strong paper on 
 “The Defense of Petersburg,” while 
 Mr. George S. Bernard gave a valu¬ 
 able and full treatment of the “Bat¬ 
 tle of the Crater.” 
 
 Dr. John Herbert Claiborne, an 
 eminent physician and the author of 
 “Seventy-five Years in Old Virginia,” 
 gave a thrilling account of the Last 
 Days of Lee and his Paladins, while 
 Mr. Freeman W. Jones gave a mod¬ 
 est account of his part in “A Daring 
 Expedition” under Captain Read. 
 
 Judge J. M. Mullen contributed 
 the final formal paper in an interest¬ 
 ing account of the Last Days of 
 Johnston’s Army. There are also 
 personal experiences by Mr. R. B. 
 Davis, Judge D. M. Bernard, Mr. 
 Putnam Smith, Captain W. E. Hin¬ 
 ton, Mr. J. W. Young, Mr. Wm. 
 Cameron, Hon. C. F. Collier, Mr. R. 
 A. Martin, Mrs. David Challender, 
 Miss Lossie Hill, Miss Virginia 
 Davidson, Mrs. Fanny Waddell, Mr. 
 Hugh R. Smith, Mr. John R. Turner, 
 Mr. W. E. Smith, Prof. R. W. Jones, 
 Mr. W. E. Whitehorne, Mr. E. Myers, 
 Mr. H. V. L. Bird, Judge D. A. 
 
 Hinton, Capt. L. L. Marks, Col. E. 
 M. Field, Maj. W. A. Shepard, Mr. 
 W. P. Hoy, Mr. J. T. Barham, Capt. 
 J. R. Patterson, Mr. J. E. Spots- 
 wood, Col. J. P. Minetree, Mr. J. E. 
 Rockwell and others. 
 
 The Petersburg Historians 
 
 Three histories of Petersburg have 
 been written, and each represents a 
 serious effort to tell worthily the 
 chronicles of the noble city. 
 
 Rev. Minton Thrift seems to have 
 been the first to attempt the task, 
 and his incomplete history, written 
 in 1845, is now the property of Mrs. 
 Alexander. The style of the work is 
 heavy, but it shows careful study 
 and research. 
 
 In 1878, Rev. E. S. Gregory pub¬ 
 lished his “Sketch of the History of 
 Petersburg.” This work is written 
 in easy and flowing style and is well 
 worthy of the high esteem in which 
 it is held. Mr. Gregory collected his 
 facts with care and presented them 
 in attractive form. 
 
 Pollock’s Guide 
 
 The most comprehensive of these 
 histories, however, is the two hun¬ 
 dred and fifty-page “Guide to Peters¬ 
 burg” of Mr. Edward Pollock, an 
 Englishman, published in 1884. The 
 book is both “historical and indus¬ 
 trial,” less than one hundred pages 
 being devoted to the history of the 
 city, and the remainder to sketches 
 of the city’s industries and organi¬ 
 zations and to advertisements. One 
 feature of the book that adds to its 
 interest and value is the author’s 
 plan of giving a sketch of his adver¬ 
 tisers, and many of the prominent 
 business men of a third of a century 
 ago are thus described. 
 
 PART V—STORY OF THE SIEGE 
 OF PETERSBURG 
 
 The Six Accounts 
 
 As already mentioned, six resi¬ 
 dents of Petersburg have told the 
 story of the siege and defense of 
 the city. These have done it so well 
 as to discourage any further at¬ 
 tempt. Colonel F. H. Archer’s paper 
 in the “War Talks” is the most 
 graphic; Captain W. G. McCabe’s 
 paper in the Southern Historical 
 Papers is the most complete; Mr. 
 G. S. Bernard’s in the “War Talks” 
 is the most careful, and Mr. An¬ 
 thony Keiley’s in “In Vinculis” is 
 
 22 
 
the most brilliant. The outlines given 
 by Mr. E. S. Gregory in his Sketch 
 and by Mr. Edward Pollock in his 
 Guide are compilations rather than 
 independent accounts. 
 
 “Caviare to the General” 
 
 All these excellent accounts, how¬ 
 ever, leave something to be desired. 
 They are either too technical or too 
 diffuse, too deep or too long, for 
 the average reader. Thus they are 
 “caviare to the general,” and few 
 of our people read these admirable 
 essays today. 
 
 The Petersburg Iliad 
 
 It ought to be possible, however, 
 to tell this modern Iliad in brief 
 and simple style, and such a story 
 ought to interest even the children 
 of the city and thus preserve the 
 memory of the deeds of the fathers 
 for the coming years. The military 
 terms, the involved strategy, the 
 complicated movements, the details 
 of battles, must here be avoided as 
 carefully as the rhetorical outburst 
 or the fine language. Only the gen¬ 
 eral plan and outline and the spe¬ 
 cific names and dates need be given. 
 The “terrain” must become simply 
 “the lay of the land,” the “lunette” 
 must be simply an open earthwork, 
 the “salient” merely a fort. In fact, 
 any child may learn the plan of the 
 siege by grasping the two words, 
 front and flank, and by bending a 
 whiplash till it meets the handle of 
 the whip. 
 
 The Seventeen Companies 
 
 Until the last twelve-month of the 
 Civil War, Petersburg was not 
 threatened, although there was a 
 flurry in July, 1863, caused by the 
 rumor that a Federal gunboat was 
 coming up the river. During all this 
 time of quiet, however, this city was 
 sending her men to the Confederate 
 armies, and it is an actual fact that 
 out of a total white population of 
 less than ten thousand Petersburg 
 furnished seventeen companies to the 
 Confederate service. These seven¬ 
 teen companies are mentioned by 
 name in the sketches of Gregory and 
 of Pollock. 
 
 The First Menace 
 
 The 5th of May, 1864, brought 
 the first real menace of war to Pe¬ 
 tersburg. General Butler’s army of 
 
 thirty thousand had begun a move¬ 
 ment against Petersburg and Rich¬ 
 mond. His troops landed at City 
 Point and his cavalry advanced from 
 Suffolk. General Pickett was in 
 charge of the troops in Petersburg. 
 Six months before he had heard 
 rumors of this intended advance 
 and urged the need of troops and 
 fortifications at Petersburg, but the 
 city was still unprepared for attack. 
 However, General Pickett with some 
 six hundred regulars and about the 
 same number of militia made ready 
 to defend the city on this 5th of 
 May, 1864. Fortunately Butler did 
 not attack that day, and on the next 
 day Haygood’s brigade arrived and 
 checked Butler’s advance at Port 
 Walthall. On the 7th day of May, 
 Wise’s Brigade arrived and occupied 
 the lines toward City Point. 
 
 The Month’s Respite 
 
 This arrival of Wise’s Brigade gave 
 the city a needed defense. Proper 
 lines of defense were prepared and 
 the local militia was soon increased 
 to a thousand. The tide of fighting, 
 however, turned toward the north 
 side of the Appomattox, and most of 
 the regulars and of the militia were 
 withdrawn from the Petersburg lines, 
 only a few companies being left to 
 guard the trenches here. General 
 Henry A. Wise was in command of 
 Petersburg and the lines around it. 
 In this connection, the following per¬ 
 sonal letter from his son, the late 
 John S. Wise, treasured by the writer 
 of this article, will prove interesting: 
 
 John S. Wise’s 
 
 “Tell Mrs. Davis that I say no¬ 
 body can praise Petersburg too high¬ 
 ly. It was the most devoted, un¬ 
 selfish, hospitable place on earth. 
 But the man who above all others 
 ought to be the cherished hero of 
 Petersburg is Henry A. Wise.” 
 
 “Arriving with his brigade from 
 Charleston in May, 1864, he reached 
 there in time to meet and repel the 
 first Federal advance, and for near¬ 
 ly a month, solitary and alone, his 
 brigade, only supported by home 
 guards, whipped off and held in 
 check the Federals—2,200 men suc¬ 
 cessfully opposed 22,000 men until 
 General Lee could succor them, and 
 by that time General Wise had lost 
 nine out of twelve of his field offi¬ 
 cers and nearly half of his brigade.” 
 
 23 
 
“Nobody except Mahone at the 
 Crater ever fought for Petersburg 
 as did General Wise, and when they 
 build another statue to those who 
 loved Petersburg best and fought 
 hardest for her, it ought to be to 
 my old bald-eagle daddy.” 
 
 The 9th of June, 1864 
 
 If Butler’s attack, foiled by Gen¬ 
 eral Wise, was the prologue to the 
 city’s war drama, there was yet a 
 grim curtain-raiser of tragedy be¬ 
 fore the real action begun. This 
 was Kautz’s raid on the 9th of June, 
 when the local force of one hundred 
 and twenty-five men had to bear the 
 brunt of the attack of the thirteen 
 hundred Federal regulars. This he¬ 
 roic resistance saved the city by 
 holding the enemy until help came, 
 but the success was won at heavy 
 cost. It is in memory of these de¬ 
 voted sons that Petersburg annually 
 keeps her Memorial Day on the 9th 
 of June. 
 
 The General Situation 
 
 Grant’s overland campaign, begun 
 on the 3d of May, 1864, had failed. 
 After the battles of the Wilderness, 
 Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor, he 
 was still unable to drive Lee from 
 the fortifications of Richmond. Cold 
 Harbor was fought on the 3d of 
 June, and now Grant determined to 
 move on Petersburg and thus attack 
 Richmond from the south. The 
 movement to the south was begun at 
 once, and by the 16th of June all 
 Grant’s army was south of the James 
 River. Thus the Federal Army of 
 the Potomac was being launched 
 against Petersburg. 
 
 Kautz’s Raid 
 
 In the meantime, before Grant’s 
 forces reached Petersburg or were 
 known to be about to attack it, part 
 of General Butler’s force made the 
 9th of June attack, known as Kautz’s 
 Raid. The Federal forces consisted 
 of an infantry force of five or six 
 thousand men under General Gil¬ 
 more that moved against the Confed¬ 
 erate lines near the river, and a cav¬ 
 alry force of thirteen hundred men 
 with four guns that attempted to 
 capture the city by a surprise attack 
 from the Jerusalem Plank Road. 
 
 The infantry attack under Gil¬ 
 more was not seriously pressed, as 
 he did not assault the lines in front 
 
 of him, reporting them as too strong. 
 Kautz’s cavalry, however, swept 
 around without resistance. Reach¬ 
 ing the plank road, they advanced 
 to capture the city. All went well 
 until they reached the Rives farm. 
 
 The Petersburg Militia 
 
 As already explained, the regu¬ 
 lars and most of the militia had been 
 withdrawn from Petersburg for ser¬ 
 vice elsewhere. The small force left 
 in the trenches had spent thirty days 
 in drilling, guard duty and camp life. 
 They had no idea of the impending 
 attack. When the news of the dan¬ 
 ger came through a note from Colo¬ 
 nel Harrison, the long roll was or¬ 
 dered, and the old men and bojrs and 
 absentees of the militia were hur¬ 
 riedly summoned from Petersburg. 
 The six companies of militia that ar¬ 
 rived in time to bear the brunt of 
 Kautz’s attack had a total strength 
 of one hundred and twenty-five men. 
 They had to face a force ten times 
 their number. 
 
 The Rives Farm Fight 
 
 The fight began at noon on the 
 9th of June on the Jerusalem Plank 
 Road, a mile and a half from Peters¬ 
 burg. Our men occupied an open 
 earth-work, with low breastworks 
 running out on either side. The first 
 cavalry charge was driven back, and 
 the one gun of Sturdivant’s battery 
 that had been hurried up with six 
 men opened on the enemy. The lit¬ 
 tle handful could hope for no help. 
 On one side was a gap of a mile to 
 the next support, and on the other 
 a gap of four miles to the river. The 
 fate of Petersburg depended on their 
 stubborn resistance, as they knew. 
 What they did not know was that 
 the fate of Richmond and of Lee’s 
 army depended on them. It was a 
 Thermopylae of the Civil War. 
 
 Two Hours of Heroism 
 
 The first charge of Kautz’s cav¬ 
 alry was repulsed by the fire of 
 Archer’s men. Kautz then dis¬ 
 mounted two regiments of his cav¬ 
 alry and began to attack from left 
 and right. Our men twice repulsed 
 the attacks and were commanded to 
 fall back only after a gap in their 
 lines had been penetrated and they 
 had been flanked on both sides. 
 “We fought them,” says Anthony 
 
 24 
 
Keiley, “till we were so surrounded 
 that two men nearest to me were 
 shot in the back while facing the 
 line of original approach; till our 
 camp in rear of the works was 
 full of the foe; till the noblest blood 
 of our city stained the breastworks/’ 
 Then at last they retreated, with a 
 loss of sixty-five out of one hundred 
 and twenty-five—more than half. In 
 his report, General Colston says: 
 “They stood to the breastworks like 
 veterans and did not fall back until 
 ordered to do so, when they were 
 surrounded on three sides and al¬ 
 most entirely cut off. Had they re¬ 
 treated five or ten minutes sooner, 
 the city would have been in the 
 enemy’s hands.” 
 
 The City Saved 
 
 Thus it was the stubborn last half- 
 hour of this fight that saved Peters¬ 
 burg. Kautz’s forces then advanced 
 in two divisions. The main division 
 turned up the New Road to Peters¬ 
 burg, the other proceeded toward 
 Blandford. Sturdivant’s battery 
 checked the advance to Blandford, 
 and Graham’s battery reached the 
 Heights just in time to check the 
 New Road advance at the foot of 
 Waterworks Hill until Bearing’s cav¬ 
 alry arrived and drove the enemy 
 back. 
 
 In his report, General Wise says 
 of the Petersburg militiamen: “If 
 Sturdivant’s battery lost one gun, a 
 better one was captured and another 
 disabled—and if they lost half a mile 
 of ground, they gained a half hour 
 of time and saved their beloved 
 city.” 
 
 Grant’s Surprise Attack 
 
 As Butler made his surprise at¬ 
 tack on the 9th of June, so Gen¬ 
 eral Grant himself planned the sec¬ 
 ond surprise attack on the 15th of 
 June. This time the salvation of the 
 city was due to Grant’s secretiveness 
 and to two accidents—a short pon¬ 
 toon bridge and an incorrect map. 
 
 General Lee did not learn of 
 Grant’s move to the south until the 
 13th of June. Even then he did not 
 know Grant’s plan against Peters¬ 
 burg, but expected a direct advance 
 on Richmond by the river routes. 
 Hence Petersburg was still weakly 
 garrisoned and fortified, and, as 
 Swinton says, “was the open prize 
 of the first captor.” 
 
 “Saved by Accidents” 
 
 The Federal troops under Smith 
 crossed the Appomattox at Point of 
 Rocks on the night of June 14th 
 and advanced against Petersburg. 
 Many more troops would have 
 joined in the attack, but the main 
 Federal forces had lost a day by 
 waiting for a longer pontoon bridge. 
 Hancock’s Corps, however, had been 
 ferried across in transports, and they 
 would have arrived in time to join 
 Smith and gain the city if Hancock 
 had not been misled by an incorrect 
 map. Even in spite of this, Hancock 
 would have arrived in time had he 
 known Petersburg was his objective, 
 but Grant had not communicated the 
 plan to him. Hence he arrived only 
 after Smith had made his attack on 
 the 15th. He then offered to join 
 Smith in a concerted attack. As the 
 hour was late, however, Smith con¬ 
 tented himself with holding the part 
 of the Confederate lines already cap¬ 
 tured, and thus gave Lee time to 
 pour reinforcements into Petersburg 
 during the night. 
 
 The Period of Assaults 
 
 Swinton devotes a chapter to the 
 two weeks following the surprise 
 attack of the 15th of June, calling 
 this the “period of assaults.” They 
 were two weeks of exhausting ef¬ 
 fort on both sides. In the first four 
 days of assault, from Wednesday to 
 Saturday, the Federals lost more 
 than ten thousand men. It was 
 three days later, on the 21st of June, 
 that Grant began his attempt to ex¬ 
 tend his left and cut Lee’s communi¬ 
 cations. This brought on the action 
 of the 22d of June and the first bat¬ 
 tle of Reams’s Station. In both of 
 these actions the Union advance .was 
 sharply checked, but though driven 
 back from the Weldon Railroad, the 
 Union forces were firmly established 
 across the Jerusalem Plank Road. 
 
 The July Situation 
 
 By the 1st of July both armies 
 were entrenched before Petersburg. 
 Grant’s base was City Point, with 
 Butler at Bermuda Hundred and 
 Foster at Deep Bottom, ten miles 
 south of Richmond. Grant’s lines 
 before Petersburg extended from the 
 river on the east toward the Wel¬ 
 don Railroad on the south. Along 
 this whole line Lee’s army faced 
 the Union host, protecting the Rich- 
 
 25 
 
mond and Petersburg Railroad from 
 attack on the north of the Appo¬ 
 mattox, enveloping Petersburg on the 
 east and south, and stretching west¬ 
 ward beyond the flanks of the Union 
 Army. Thus the siege of Petersburg 
 was not really a siege or blockade, 
 as its lines of communications were 
 open. It was rather a partial invest¬ 
 ment or “watchful waiting,” as in 
 the siege of Sebastopol. 
 
 The whole month of July was filled 
 with the work of entrenchment. Both 
 of the armies “dug themselves in” 
 and by the close of the month the 
 systems of earthworks covered the 
 front. It was now open to Grant 
 either to try a direct assault or to 
 attack by the flank. He chose first 
 a direct assault on Burnside’s front, 
 through the exploding of a mine. 
 
 The Crater—July 30th. 
 
 This Federal attack on the 30th 
 of July, called by the Confederates 
 the Crater Battle and by Swinton 
 the Mine Fiasco, resulted in a Union 
 defeat and greatly cheered the 
 Southern army. 
 
 Burnside’s Pennsylvania miners 
 had dug a mine under an advanced 
 fort of the Southern line, about half 
 a mile from Blandford Cemetery, 
 called the Elliott Salient. The plan 
 was to make an opening for the 
 Union forces by the explosion of this 
 mine and to advance through this 
 breach into Petersburg. Five of the 
 eight divisions of the Confederate 
 army had been drawn away from 
 Petersburg by a movement of the 
 Union armies in the direction of 
 Richmond, so that on the morning of 
 July 30th General Lee had only thir¬ 
 teen thousand men to defend the 
 city, while Grant had sixty thousand 
 massed for the attack. 
 
 The mine was to be exploded at 
 half past four in the morning. At 
 first it failed to explode, but Lieu¬ 
 tenant Douty and Sergeant Rees 
 volunteered to relight the fuse, and 
 the mine exploded at a quarter to 
 five, destroying the “Elliott Salient” 
 and opening the way to Petersburg. 
 
 The Way Open 
 
 Then began the Federal advance, 
 but as soon as the attacking column 
 advanced beyond the Crater it was 
 met by the fire of Confederate bat¬ 
 teries from left and right and the 
 Federal troops sought refuge in the 
 Crater, although a prompt advance 
 
 would have carried Cemetery Ridge 
 and won the city. As other troops 
 were thrown in they huddled into the 
 Crater or sought cover behind the ad¬ 
 jacent breastworks. This caused 
 great confusion. A division of negro 
 troops made an advance toward the 
 crest, but were driven back and re¬ 
 tired through the troops in the Crater 
 back to their original lines. During 
 all this time the way to Petersburg 
 was open, and only the fires of the 
 batteries to right and left kept back 
 the advance. There were literally 
 no troops between the Crater and 
 Petersburg. 
 
 Mahone’s Brigade 
 
 When the mine exploded, Ma¬ 
 hone’s brigade was west of the 
 Willcox farm, some two miles dis¬ 
 tant. General Mahone received or¬ 
 ders to send two of his brigades 
 a little after 6 o’clock, when the 
 Crater had been in the enemy’s 
 possession for more than an hour. 
 The men of Mahone’s Virginia bri¬ 
 gade and Wright’s Georgia brigade 
 dropped back from the lines and 
 marched through the ravines and 
 up the covered way, forming for 
 the attack in a ravine about two 
 hundred yards northwest of the 
 Crater. General Mahone himself 
 directed the attack and the advance 
 was made by the Virginia brigade 
 under General Weisiger. This splen¬ 
 did charge recaptured the lines to 
 the north of the Crater about 9 
 o’clock. An hour later Wright’s bri¬ 
 gade advanced from the same ravine 
 against the Federals south of the 
 Crater, but the attempt failed and 
 they took shelter with the Virginians 
 in the works already recaptured. 
 Wright’s brigade made another un¬ 
 successful attempt against the works 
 about 11 o’clock, and it was not until 
 after 1 o’clock that Saunders’s Ala¬ 
 bama brigade charged and captured 
 the Crater itself. The Federal loss 
 was over five thousand men, and 
 Grant justly called the Crater fight 
 “a miserable affair” for the Federal 
 troops. 
 
 The July and August Diversions 
 
 Early in July, before the Crater 
 Battle, Lee had tried to weaken the 
 Union forces before the city by the 
 diversion of Early’s Raid. He hoped 
 that Early’s dash down the Valley 
 on Washington would cause Grant 
 to send several of his army corps to 
 
defend it. Early got within a few 
 miles of Washington, but had to re¬ 
 treat, and Grant sent only his Sixth 
 Corps to aid in the defense of the 
 capital. 
 
 After the Crater Battle, Grant in 
 turn tried a diversion. Early in 
 August he sent Sheridan on his raid 
 down the Valley of Virginia to 
 weaken Lee’s forces and to cut off 
 his provisions. This raid was suc¬ 
 cessful, but Early’s men, driven out 
 of the Valley, joined Lee’s forces at 
 Petersburg. 
 
 The Two Railroads 
 
 Thus there was a stalemate be¬ 
 fore the lines of Petersburg. Grant 
 found that the surprise attack had 
 failed, the sustained assaults had 
 failed, the special attack had failed, 
 the diversion plan had failed. Great 
 soldier as he was, he knew that a 
 master of strategy confronted him, 
 and he wisely chose the process of 
 attrition and of gradual advance on 
 the Confederate lines of supplies. 
 
 Lee’s army before Petersburg 
 was supplied by two railroads, the 
 Weldon Railroad (now the Atlantic 
 Coast Line) and the Southside Rail¬ 
 road (now the Norfolk and West¬ 
 ern). Grant now began hammering 
 on these two lines of supply. 
 
 Weldon Railroad Lost 
 
 Although Lee had anticipated this 
 move and although the battles were 
 hotly contested and marked by bril¬ 
 liant fighting, Grant had the Weldon 
 Railroad by the end of August. 
 There were four fierce battles for 
 this prize, from the 18th of August 
 to the second battle of Reams’s 
 Station on the 25th of August, when 
 the Confederates won a brilliant vic¬ 
 tory. The Union armies had the 
 railroad, however, at a price of seven 
 thousand men, thus cutting off Lee’s 
 direct supplies from the South. But 
 Lee still had his main line of sup¬ 
 plies by the Southside Railroad with 
 his base at Burkeville. 
 
 Hatcher’s Run 
 
 Grant continued to “extend his 
 left,” and October was ushered in 
 with the “Battles of the Jones 
 House.” Then followed almost a 
 month of minor fights, until Grant’s 
 final effort to capture the Southside 
 Railroad before the coming of win¬ 
 ter. This was the Battle of Hatch¬ 
 
 er’s Run, one of the main engage¬ 
 ments in Grant’s turning movement. 
 His plan was to turn Lee’s extreme 
 right and gain the railroad. Three 
 corps of the Army of the Potomac 
 took part, only enough men being 
 left behind to hold the Petersburg 
 lines. The attempt failed, after 
 very heavy fighting, and Grant set¬ 
 tled down to extend his line of for¬ 
 tifications to Hatcher’s Run. 
 
 Two Winter Efforts 
 
 In December the Union forces de¬ 
 stroyed the Weldon Railroad nearly 
 to the North Carolina line, but there 
 was no further serious attempt 
 against Lee’s right and the South- 
 side Railroad until early in Febru¬ 
 ary. This new attempt was defeated 
 by the Confederates, and the armies 
 settled down in winter quarters. 
 
 The Spring Situation 
 
 With the opening of the spring 
 campaign, the defense of Petersburg 
 becomes even more important. It 
 is now the objective not only of the 
 Army of the Potomac, but also of 
 Sherman and his hosts marching 
 north from Savannah. It is a won¬ 
 derful play of “team work” in war. 
 In North Carolina Sherman was 
 fighting Johnston in order to reach 
 and join Grant at Petersburg, while 
 Grant was reinaining inactive at 
 Petersburg, lest Lee should leave 
 Petersburg to make a junction with 
 Johnston elsewhere. Sheridan with 
 his forces from the Valley was also 
 hastening to Petersburg, and thus all 
 the Northern forces were converging 
 on this devoted city. Sheridan 
 reached Petersburg with his troops 
 on March 26th, and Sherman himself 
 arrived a few days later, leaving his 
 army at Goldsboro, N. C. 
 
 The Battle of Fort Steadman 
 
 Lee had now resolved to leave 
 Petersburg and Richmond and try to 
 unite with Johnston on the Danville 
 line. Rations were accumulated at 
 Amelia C. H. In order to open the 
 way to Burkeville he struck toward 
 City Point on March 25th. Thus the 
 attack on Fort Steadman was Lee’s 
 attempt to open the way for a re¬ 
 treat by the Cox Road. By striking 
 this blow at the fort just at Peters¬ 
 burg he hoped to cause Grant to 
 draw in his troops from his left flank. 
 “The attack was to be made by two 
 
 27 
 
divisions under Gordon with all the 
 troops available to support it.” Gor¬ 
 don’s brilliant attack was successful, 
 but from lack of support it did not 
 bring the result hoped for. It was 
 the last serious initiative on the part 
 of the Army of Northern Virginia 
 before Petersburg, for now it was 
 Grant’s turn to attack. 
 
 The Battle of Five Forks 
 
 Grant’s final successful attempt in 
 his turning movement was the Bat¬ 
 tle of Five Forks. The Southside 
 Railroad and Cox’s Road, the supply 
 line and the retreat line of Lee’s 
 army, were again his objective. But 
 now the Confederate forces, reduced 
 in numbers and spread over a length 
 of line almost impossible to hold, 
 had to meet the superior numbers of 
 Grant increased by the soldiers of 
 Sheridan. Worst of all, Lee had to 
 meet the massed attack of the Union 
 armies without recalling Long- 
 street’s two divisions guarding Rich¬ 
 mond or Mahone’s division of Hill’s 
 corps before Bermuda Hundred, for 
 he did not know that Grant had 
 withdrawn three of his four divisions 
 before Richmond for the attempt on 
 the Petersburg lines. 
 
 “Aggressive to the Last” 
 
 But Lee was “Aggressive to the 
 Last,” as Swinton says. Taking all 
 the troops he dared from the Peters¬ 
 burg lines and leaving only some six 
 thousand men to guard the entrench¬ 
 ments, he hurried with some fifteen 
 thousand men to meet the attack on 
 his right. 
 
 The First of April, 1865 
 
 The armies faced each other at 
 Hatcher’s Run, but the heavy rains 
 of the 30th of March made Grant 
 unwilling to open operations. Taking 
 the initiative, Lee attacked the Union 
 lines fiercely. This final important 
 battle of the Confederate army was 
 stubbornly contested and at times 
 seemed to give promise of success, 
 but it ended in Lee’s defeat, with 
 heavy losses on both sides. The 
 Southside Road and Cox’s Road were 
 both in Grant’s hands, and Lee now 
 held only a half-moon of trenches 
 and forts encircling Petersburg to 
 the Appomattox River on each side. 
 
 Fort Gregg 
 
 One of the most gallant defenses 
 
 of history was that of Fort Gregg, 
 near the Central Hospital. As the 
 Union forces advanced from Five 
 Forks and Dinwiddie Court House 
 and reached the lines just around 
 Petersburg, a Union division at¬ 
 tempted to break through to the 
 city. There were only two hundred 
 and fifty men to defend Fort Gregg, 
 but before it fell at 7 o’clock on 
 the morning of April 2d over five 
 hundred of the enemy had fallen and 
 only thirty defenders were left. And 
 the inner line around the city still 
 held firm. 
 
 Death of A. P. Hill 
 
 About 10 o’clock on April 2d 
 Longstreet at last arrived from 
 Richmond with several brigades, and 
 soon afterward General A. P. Hill 
 struck the last blow for the Army 
 of Northern Virginia in the siege. 
 His attack on the Ninth Corps was 
 so successful that the Union garri¬ 
 son of City Point had to be ordered 
 to its support. But General A. P. 
 Hill was killed while riding in front 
 of his lines. The spot where he fell, 
 a few miles from the city, has a 
 marker placed by the Petersburg 
 Sons of Veterans, and the local or¬ 
 ganization of Confederate Veterans 
 is the “A. P. Hill Camp,” in memory 
 of the great leader that gave his life 
 for the city. 
 
 Evacuation and Retreat 
 
 Lee still held his cordon around 
 Petersburg, but the lack of supplies 
 made retreat inevitable. The only 
 line of retreat open was up the north 
 bank of the Appomattox. With won¬ 
 derful skill, on the night of April 2d, 
 he withdrew his forces from Peters¬ 
 burg, from Bermuda Hundred, and 
 from Richmond, and brought them 
 together at Chesterfield Court 
 House. At dawn Lee’s army was six¬ 
 teen miles from Petersburg. 
 
 Lee’s forces retreated from Pe¬ 
 tersburg Sunday night, April 2d, 
 over four bridges—the Pocahontas 
 Bridge, the Railroad Bridge, the Pon¬ 
 toon Bridge, and Campbell’s Bridge. 
 The city was not taken by assault, 
 as is asserted in many school his¬ 
 tories. Swinton tells the true story: 
 “When in the gray dawn of Mon¬ 
 day, April 3d, the skirmishers ad¬ 
 vanced from the lines before Peters¬ 
 burg, the city was found to be 
 evacuated.” 
 
 28 
 
Surrender of Petersburg 
 
 The city was formally surrendered 
 to General Grant on the 3d of April, 
 1865, by a committee of three, 
 Mayor W. W. Townes, Mr. D’Arcy 
 Paul and Mr. Charles F. Collier, act¬ 
 ing in accordance with a formal reso¬ 
 lution passed by the Common Coun¬ 
 cil, of which Mr. J. Pinckney Wil¬ 
 liamson is the only surviving mem¬ 
 ber. 
 
 Mr. Townes was mayor for many 
 years. Mr. Collier also was later an 
 honored mayor, and Mr. D’Arcy 
 Paul’s name is dear to every citi¬ 
 zen for his philanthropy and for his 
 public services. He founded and 
 endowed the Methodist Female Or¬ 
 phan Asylum. 
 
 The Amelia Tragedy 
 
 All day during May 3d Lee’s forces 
 hastened to Amelia Court House— 
 twenty thousand gaunt veterans that 
 might still hope to cut their way 
 through and unite with Johnston’s 
 forces in North Carolina. It was to 
 Amelia that Lee has ordered supplies 
 to be sent. “Here a dire and un¬ 
 looked-for anguish befell him.” He 
 found that the train of cars loaded 
 with provisions for his army had 
 reached Amelia Court House the aft¬ 
 ernoon before, but through a mistake 
 had been sent on to Richmond and 
 was in the hands of the enemy. 
 
 Surrender at Appomattox 
 
 This was the real end. The army 
 could not be held together without 
 food. “Half of the force,” says 
 Swinton, “was broken up into for¬ 
 aging parties.” There was no fur¬ 
 ther hope to strike the foe in de¬ 
 tail and thus win to safety. The 
 retreat became an attempt to es¬ 
 cape, and the surrender at Appo¬ 
 mattox on the 9th of April, after 
 Gordon’s brave attempt to cut his 
 way through, was a surrender to 
 starvation. After Amelia there is 
 only the record of the death-throes 
 of the Army of Northern Virginia, 
 “which, vital in all its parts, died 
 only with its annihilation.” 
 
 * * * * 
 
 The Spirit of Petersburg 
 
 Thus three centuries of the strategy 
 of war and of the arts of peace have left 
 their varying memorials here, and thus 
 one may strip off the decades and the 
 centuries, layer after layer of time, yet 
 
 in each layer of time, in each decade or 
 each century, there abides still the un¬ 
 changing spirit of a sturdy, brave, homo¬ 
 geneous people. The qualities that gave 
 Petersburg vitality and initative and 
 wealth and leadership in the past, still 
 keep the historic city in the front rank 
 of Virginia communities. The deeds of 
 the fathers have not been a matter of 
 mere pride but a call and an inspiration 
 to equal deeds. Thus in the midst of the 
 bustle of the active life of today, the city 
 keeps a dignity and beauty that has 
 something of the charm of an elder and 
 a better day. 
 
 A Notable Fact 
 
 But this is not the specific charm of 
 the city, for its distinguishing character¬ 
 istic is yet to be mentioned. Not only 
 does the historic city keep its vitality, 
 after having had an active share in the 
 notable deeds of America and after hav¬ 
 ing been an integral part of the history 
 of the section and of the nation. Not 
 only does it have the dignity and inspira¬ 
 tion of a heroic past and the energy and 
 activity of a busy city of wealth and en¬ 
 terprise today. The most striking fact 
 about the city is the unbroken continuity 
 of its historic life, which is the sure guar¬ 
 antee of its continued loyalty to the 
 principles and standards that have con¬ 
 tributed to its primacy in the past. 
 Its people are the offspring of the men 
 and women that have made it famous. 
 
 If a list were made of the names of the 
 citizens mentioned in this sketch of three 
 hundred years, it would be found that 
 every one of these names is a present and 
 living force in the community of today. 
 
 Of what other city in America may 
 this be said? 
 
 The Appomattox River 
 
 So runs the story of Petersburg 
 and the fifteen miles of river history. 
 As the first English expedition across 
 the mountains started from Bellevue 
 at one end of this line, so the latest 
 American shipments of munitions 
 overseas go from City Point and 
 Hopewell at the other end. And the 
 stretch of river between has mir¬ 
 rored in its placid waters all the 
 sunshine and all the gloom of Ameri¬ 
 can history. 
 
 “The Reverend Sire” 
 
 If one might personify the Appo¬ 
 mattox, as Milton did the Cam, what 
 a “reverend sire” he would be “with 
 garments weedy and with bonnet 
 sedge,” and what moving tales he 
 could tell. From the seventeenth 
 century he would give the picture 
 
.. of Batte and his gallant companions 
 setting out from Fort Henry for their 
 Western Expedition. From the 
 eighteenth century he would tell of 
 courtly Colonel Byrd and his jour¬ 
 neys to the Dividing Line and to the 
 Land of Eden; of the stout Colonials 
 and their grapple with the British 
 at Blandford and Pocahontas Bridge. 
 From the nineteenth century he 
 would describe McRae and his brave 
 
 boys of 1812, and tell of Lee and 
 his gaunt veterans in the sixties. 
 From the twentieth century he would 
 tell us of the munition plants of 
 Hopewell and the great cantonment 
 of Camp Lee and all the varied ac¬ 
 tivities of the World War. But in 
 each century he would tell us most 
 of the devoted and noble people that 
 lived their lives and fought their bat¬ 
 tles here for home and fireside. 
 
 30 
 

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