| Virginia, Hopewell — A Busy Port |
| | “Beyond the masts and rigging and the smoke stacks and steam of the water craft, were groups of tents, long ranges of whitewashed barracks, log huts, and shanties of every shape.....these were moving uniformed soldiers and officers, negroes driving mule teams, and sentries on duty, and over all flags flying gaily.” Mrs. W. [Wilson]
Between June 1864 and April 1865, City Point was one of the busiest ports in the world. Sometimes as many as 200 ships were anchored in the . . . — Map (db m19620) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — A Supply Hub |
| | City Point’s location at the confluence of the James and Appomattox Rivers made it an ideal hub for the movement of men and material. From City Point, supplies and men traveled by road and rail to the Petersburg front. Troops or equipment bound for Bermuda Hundred lines north of the Appomattox or for the works fronting Richmond simply continued up the James to wharves at Broadway Landing, Bermuda Hundred or Deep Bottom. — Map (db m6545) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — Appomattox Manor |
| | Patented 1635 by Captain Francis Eppes, who came by tradition in the Hopewell. Owned by the same family probably longer than any land in U.S. Shelled by British during American Revolution. — Map (db m19616) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — City Point |
| | For nine months in 1864 and 1865, City Point was the nerve center of the Union war effort and one of the busiest ports in the world.
“The depot (at City Point) is the most perfect and commodious of any ever established anywhere for the supply of Armies.” - Brig. Gen. Rufus Ingalls, Chief Quartermaster
Here stood Lieut. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's headquarters, surrounded by a small city of huts and tents that sprawled across this plateau. A forest of ship masts . . . — Map (db m19614) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — City Point |
| | First settled as Bermuda Cittie by Sir Thomas Dale 1613. Important colonial port. Peter Francisco put ashore 1765 was Washington's “one man army.” Incorporated 1826. Annexed Hopewell 1923. — Map (db m19615) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — City Point — One of the World's Busiest Seaports |
| | City Point had been a port for more than 250 years before the Union army arrived. On June 15, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant established his headquarters at City Point just eight miles behind the front lines at Petersburg. Located at the confluence of the James and Appomattox Rivers, City Point had been connected by a railroad to Petersburg prior to the war. The town's strategic position adjacent to a railroad bed and the rivers offered Grant easy access to points along the front as well . . . — Map (db m19622) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — 16 — City Point — Captain John Smith’s Adventures on the James — www.johnsmithtrail.org |
| | Just east of the shallow bay where the Appomattox River empties into the James, City Point juts into the water. Upon first spying the easily defensible peninsula, Capt. Christopher Newport determined to deposit his boatload of colonists there. However, the shallow harbor and, according to Percy, “many stout and able Savages” forced the English back downriver, where they founded Jamestown.
In choosing the low-lying island of Jamestown, they defied the advice of the London . . . — Map (db m19679) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — City Point Defenses — Securing the Union Position |
| | The fort behind you is all that remains of the inner defense line built by the Union army in 1864 to protect its base headquarters at City point. With a powerful fleet of ironclads and gunboats controlling the James River and a numerically superior army, the Federals believed their position at City Point secure. Then, in September 1864, just one month after the unexplained explosion of the ordnance wharf at City Point, Confederate Gen. Wade Hampton led his cavalry around Union forces to . . . — Map (db m3791) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — City Point, Virginia |
| | 8000 — B.C. Indian occupancy.
1613 Sir Thomas Dale establishes area as “Bermuda Cittie.”
1619 — Name changes to Charles City Point.
1621 — Rev. Patrick Copeland plans to build free public school, financed by the East India Company.
1622 — The Indian Massacre virtually destroys the town and several years pass before resettlement. Public school plans never materialize. The massacre survivors from Charles City Point flee to Shirley Hundred.
1623 . . . — Map (db m19605) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — City Point’s Rails And Waterways — Tools of War for General Grant |
| | City Point...tells more about how war is conducted than many battlefields. It demonstrates how Union forces used rivers and railroads to deliver the tools of war directly to the troops in the field. – Robert Black, The Harrisburg PA Patriot News
The significance of the City Point logistical operation in the Civil War cannot be overstated. Besides being headquarters for the United States Armies, City Point was the supply base for the Union forces fighting at Petersburg and . . . — Map (db m19612) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — City Point’s Wiseman Family |
| | The Yankee Soldier met Miss Wiseman at the town well – and married her after the war.
The Wiseman family had settled in City Point many years before Mary Catherine Wiseman married Frederick Belch in 1865. He was a Yankee soldier bivouacked along the waterfront during the Civil War. A granddaughter said, “The town well was next door to grandmother's home which was on the bluff overlooking the James River, and one day he and my grandmother met there.” Belch was mustered out . . . — Map (db m41498) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — Confederate Memorial |
| | (shaft)
Dedicated to the glory of God in memory of our Confederate soldiers who fought in the War Between the States 1861-1865
Erected by the City Point Chapter United Daughters of the Confederacy 1949
(base)
Standing hand to hand and clasping hands - we shall remain united - citizens of the same country – members of the same government - all united now and forever — Map (db m25011) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — Depot Field Hospital — Union Medical Care at its Best |
| | “I think this is a very good place with the exception of too many lice.” - Stephen P. Chase, 86th New York Volunteers. Lice may have been the only problem the staff of the Depot Field Hospital could not handle. The largest of seven hospitals built at City Point during the Siege of Petersburg, the facility put to use all the Union army had learned since the beginning of the Civil War. While severely wounded soldiers were sent to the North, those who remained in the field . . . — Map (db m14597) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — Dr. M. L. King, Jr. |
| | On March 29, 1962 Dr. King
appeared in Hopewell
District Court as a
defender of civil rights
in America.
“Injustice anywhere is a
threat to justice
everywhere.”
Dedicated April 4, 2004 — Map (db m32809) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — Dr. Peter Eppes House |
| | "At first we lived in tents, but later, when my husband became commander of the post, I lived most comfortably in a house...." - Septima M. Collis
The house Septima Collis lived "most comfortably" in during the last months of the Civil War had been built by Thomas and Martha Williams in 1859 on land they had purchased from Dr. Richard Eppes for $400. Septima's husband, Brigadier General Charles H.T. Collis, obtained the house for his headquarters when he became commander of the post . . . — Map (db m19607) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — General Grant's Headquarters |
| | General Grant’s headquarters at Appomattox Manor 1864-65 during the siege of Petersburg and Richmond. President Lincoln spent 3 weeks in City Point during April, 1865. — Map (db m3797) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — Grant's Cabin |
| | From November 1864 through March 1865, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant lived in this modest cabin. From here he directed Union armies in the climactic final campaigns of the war and hosted some of the notable figures of the era: President and Mrs. Lincoln, Major General William T. Sherman, Secretary of State William Seward, and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. This was one of 22 cabins that stood on the Eppes property. After the war, Grant’s cabin was moved to Philadelphia, where it remained on . . . — Map (db m3798) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — Historic City Point |
| | “It must once have been a quite pretty place, and consisted of a large number of scattered private houses, several of them very good ones.” Col. Theodore Lyman, USA, June 16, 1864
The village of City Point dates to 1613. Prior to the Civil War, the hamlet boasted 25 houses, five wharves, three taverns, and, most importantly to the Union Army, the railroad. A few of the pre-war structures remain, preserved as part of the City Point Historic District.
Civil War first . . . — Map (db m19619) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — Housing Several Thousand Federal Troops |
| | “To a civilian, a camp is always a sad-looking sight – men living on the ground like animals, in the mud, under the rain which penetrates the tents, surrounded by thick and acrid smoke of burning wood. Army camps are wild and primitive villages...Yet, the inhabitants of these camps are writing history today.” - Auguste Laugel, a Frenchman visiting Grant at City Point
Though tents and huts were the normal accommodations at City Point, Brevet Major W.P. Martin, a . . . — Map (db m19623) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — Hurricane Isabel |
| | Hurricane Isabel caused a storm surge at City Point on September 18, 2003. Due to a combination of tropical storm winds and reversing high tides, river levels at City Point rose to 13 feet 10 inches above flood stage resulting in the total destruction of the boardwalk. For those standing on the boardwalk at 5 feet 10 inches or less, the water level would have been over your head. — Map (db m19757) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — John Randolph |
| | of Roanoke. Great American stateman and orator, born 1773 at "Cawson's", nearby on Appomattox River, home of his maternal grandfather Theodoric Bland St. — Map (db m30243) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — One Soldier, One Family, One War — The Homespun Letters of James Nugent |
| | "Oh! father, it would make your blood run cold to see the fights...War is awful." - James Nugent, City Point, April 27, 1865
In the closing months of the Civil War, a young Wisconsin college student was drafted and soon saw combat in the hellish siege of Petersburg. Letters to his family were found in a Michigan bank vault. The City Point excerpts used here were published in The Washington Post May 30, 1989. They tell a timeless story... of soldiers and their families. . . . — Map (db m19609) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — Peter Francisco |
| | Abandoned on the wharf at City
Point, now Hopewell, in 1765, he was
taken as a small boy to Buckingham
County, where he grew to gigantic
size. Enlisting at 16 he served
under Washington with distinction
in the North. Later in the South
he became a hero of the Revolution
at such battles as Camden and
Guilford Courthouse. His feats of
strength were legendary and he
served Virginia well until his
death in 1831.
Erected in his memory by
the Commonwealth of Virginia . . . — Map (db m32808) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — Porter House |
| | “I’ve noticed that that band always begins its noise just about the time I am sitting down to dinner and want to talk.” – General U.S. Grant, City Point, Virginia
Earthworks had been thrown across the neck of land upon which City Point is located. This intrenched line ran from a point on the James River to a point on the Appomattox River. A small garrison had been detailed for its defense, and the commanding officer wishing to do something that would afford the . . . — Map (db m19610) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — Quartermaster Repair Shops |
| | The Quartermaster Department was responsible for the transportation of the Army, storage and transportation of supplies, clothing, camp and garrison equipage, horses, forage, fuel, maintenance of buildings and repair of equipment.
Captain Edward J. Strang was in charge of the repair shops, located nearby, which employed more than 1,600 blacksmiths, wheelwrights, carpenters, saddlers, teamsters, laborers and clerks. These men were responsible for the maintenance and repair of army . . . — Map (db m19611) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — St. John’s Episcopal Church |
| | During the Civil War this church served as a signal station for both the Confederacy and the Union. On May 5, 1864 Col. Samuel A. Duncan’s brigade of United States Colored Troops (4th, 5th, and 6th U.S.C.T.) occupied City Point and the signal station without resistance. The 5th U.S.C.T. was the first to arrive and they captured code books and a group of Confederate signalmen who were trying to send information to Petersburg about the arrival of the Union army. For a short time the church was . . . — Map (db m19604) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — Taverns |
| | The structure before you was one of three taverns which existed in City Point at the time of the Civil War. It was probably constructed in the eighteenth century. On June 15, 1864 the United States Christian Commission established its offices in this building. In front of the tavern facing the street, the Christian Commission erected a chapel and storehouse. These three buildings comprised the agency's headquarters.
The Christian Commission was an interdenominational organization devoted . . . — Map (db m19624) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — The Bull Ring At City Point — A Dreaded Provost Prison |
| | “It was a pen of filth and vermin.” – William Howell Reed, a Sanitary Commission agent
The Bull Ring was the Union provost Marshal’s prison at City Point used for the confinement of Union soldiers convicted or charged with desertion, murder, rape, disobedience, theft, drunkenness and other crimes. The pen was composed of three large one-story barracks which were surrounded by high wooden fences strictly guarded by sentries day and night. At the entrance was a . . . — Map (db m19602) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — The Depot Field Hospital |
| | “The sick and wounded are as promptly and carefully taken care of as those in a City or Town, and probably much better.” - Gen. Rufus Ingalls, USA
Across the cove from you, on the site of the modern hospital, stood the largest of the Union hospitals at City Point. The Depot Field Hospital covered 200 acres and could take care for as many as 10,000 patients. When Abraham Lincoln visited the hospital on April 8, 1865, he shook hands with over 6,000 patients, both Union and . . . — Map (db m6546) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — The Peacemaker |
| | “Let them surrender and go home, they will not take up arms again. Let them all go, officers and all, let them have their horses to plow with, and, if you like, their guns to shoot crows. Treat them liberally . . . I say, give them the most liberal and honorable terms.” - Abraham Lincoln, City Point Virginia, on board the President’s Ship, River Queen, March 28, 1865 The best-remembered visitor to General Grant’s headquarters at City Point was President Abraham Lincoln. . . . — Map (db m19658) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — The Waterfront |
| | “Everything is as perfectly arranged as in Boston.” - Pvt. R.G. Carter 22nd Massachusetts Infantry
Cannons, food, munitions, forage, even coffins-the list of goods that passed onto the waterfront before you seemed endless. Gangs of laborers-many of them former slaves-toiled constantly on the half mile of wharves here, unloading three million pounds of materiel each day. While the Confederates in Petersburg suffered severe shortages, the Union warehouses at City Point . . . — Map (db m19621) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — U.S. Government Bakery |
| | “After breakfast I mounted and rode...to look at the Bake House just completed. It will turn out 100,000 rations in 24 hours. Every thing is on a grand scale and of the most convenient & Economical character. They make most excellent bread.” - General Marsena Patrick, Provost Marshal, October 25, 1864
Feeding the Union army was not an easy task. Much labor was required to ensure that thousands of U.S. Soldiers received their daily rations. On August 30, 1864 the U.S. . . . — Map (db m19613) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — Union Fort |
| | One of ten small forts protecting City Point docks and Gen. Grant's Headquarters from Confederate raiders 1864-65. — Map (db m6544) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — 16 — Virginia Indians near City Point — Captain John Smith’s Adventures on the James — www.johnsmithtrail.org |
| | This peninsula separated two chiefdoms subject to Powhatan, the Weyanock and the Appomattuck. John Smith's map shows the Appomattuck people, whom Christopher Newport described as initially unfriendly, living in this vicinity. He told of a different reception from the Weyanock people who lived across the river.
Newport described a kingdom full of pearl-mussels at the junction of the Appomattox and the James called “Waynauk,” where the Natives welcomed him with rejoicing and . . . — Map (db m19680) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — Virginia’s First World War I Monument |
| | On Memorial Day 1921, Hopewell American Legion Post 80 dedicated the Commonwealth of Virginia’s first tribute to those who made the supreme sacrifice during World War I. The monument now honors Hopewell’s fallen heroes from succeeding wars and conflicts. The Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 637 currently maintains the structure ensuring its survival for generations to come.
This story board was made possible by the generosity of the Hopewell Rotary Club and the City of Hopewell. — Map (db m17643) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — Weston Manor — Weston Plantation |
| | “… a very pretty, large white house situated on a hill that sloped to the river; with pretty fruit and shade trees scattered over the lawn.” - Emma Wood Richardson Weston Manor provided a safe haven for young Emma Wood and her family during the Civil War. Years later, Emma recalled the hardships her family endured during the war, ranging from the lack of food, clothing and medicine to the inflated prices of what little was available. Most of all she remembered the . . . — Map (db m14586) HM |
| Virginia, Hopewell — Women At City Point |
| | “It was a nervous place for a woman; but I endured it, rahter feeling a kind of enthusiasm in the nearness to danger and death.” - Sarah Palmer, Ninth Corps Hospital Nurse
Women decided to come to City Point for as many different reasons as men enlisted in the army. Some came for the excitement of a military encampment. Some came to accompany or assist family members in some way. And some came because they truly believed that their presence at City Point would advance . . . — Map (db m19618) HM |
| Virginia (Chesterfield County), Hopewell — K 202 — Bermuda Hundred |
| | A mile north, on the site of an important Appamatuck Indian village, Sir Thomas Dale established Bermuda Hundred in 1613. The hundred was a traditional English jurisdiction of one hundred families. Dale, the deputy governor and marshal of Virginia, founded an incorporated town and the first system of private land-tenure in English America there between 1611 and 1614. Bermuda Hundred was an official port of entry on the James River in the 1700's, with its own customhouse and inspectors. Benedict . . . — Map (db m11662) HM |
| Virginia (Chesterfield County), Hopewell — S 23 — Point of Rocks |
| | Point of Rocks is located two miles south on the Appomattox River. In 1608, Captain John Smith wrote abut this high rock cliff which projected out to the channel of the river. Known to all as Point of Rocks, it was severely damaged during a battle between Confederate artillery and Federal gunboats on June 26, 1862. Rock from the point was used to build the wall of the City Point National Cemetery shortly after the Civil War. — Map (db m11844) HM |
| Virginia (Chesterfield County), Hopewell — S 22 — Port Walthall |
| | Port Walthall, which stood on the banks of the Appomattox River several miles to the south, was a major shipping and passenger embarkation point prior to the Civil War. The railroad tracks leading to the port were melted down to manufacture Confederate cannon. — Map (db m11847) HM |
| Virginia (Prince George County), Hopewell — Baylor’s Farm — Prelude to Petersburg — Lee Vs. Grant - The 1864 Campaign |
| | Ordered to take Petersburg, Gen. William F. “Baldy” Smith directed Gen. Edward W. Hinks’ division of African American soldiers to move from City Point toward the Cockade City. Hinks encountered unexpected Confederate resistance at Baylor’s Farm in the early morning hours of June 15, 1864. Southern cavalrymen under Gen. James Dearing, supported by the Petersburg Artillery, had fortified an already strong position by constructing earthworks across City Point Road. Smith then commanded . . . — Map (db m3745) HM |
| Virginia (Prince George County), Hopewell — Evergreen |
| | Evergreen
Birthplace of
Edmund Ruffin
Southerner
Father of Agricultural
Chemistry in America
1794-1865 — Map (db m25009) HM |
| Virginia (Prince George County), Hopewell — K 209 — Merchant's Hope Church |
| | This well-known colonial church's architectural form and detail is typical of early and mid-18th-century Virginia churches. Located half a mile south, the building has Flemish-bond brickwork, modillion cornice, and a gracefully splayed gable roof. Although most of its original interior features were lost during the Civil War, the gallery, stone aisle pavers, and roof framing survived and were repaired by 1870. Historic restoration began in the 1960s and was completed in the 1970s. The original . . . — Map (db m30241) HM |
| Virginia (Prince George County), Hopewell — K 323 — Richard Bland |
| | Richard Bland (1710-1776), statesman and son of Richard and Elizabeth Randolph Bland of Jordan's Point, represented Prince George County in the House of Burgesses from 1742 to 1776. Between the 1750s and 1774, Bland played a leading role through newspaper articles, public letters, and pamphlets in arguing for Virginia control of its internal political and economic affairs. He was a Virginia delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses and elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in . . . — Map (db m18748) HM |
| Virginia (Prince George County), Hopewell — PA 252 — Samuel Jordan of Jordan's Journey |
| | Prior to 1619, Native Americans occupied this prominent peninsula along the upper James River, now called Jordan's Point. Arriving in Jamestown by 1610, Samuel Jordan served in July 1619 in Jamestown as a burgess for Charles City in the New World's oldest legislative assembly. A year later, he patented a 450-acre tract here known first as Beggar's Bush and later as Jordan's Journey. He survived the massive Powhatan Indian attack of March 1622 here at his plantation, a palisaded fort that . . . — Map (db m18749) HM |
| Virginia (Prince George County), Hopewell — The Army of the James Monument |
| | (north face)
Sacred
to the
Lamented Dead
of
The Army
of the James.
(south face)
Erected
by the direction of
Maj. Genl. B.F. Butler.
George Suckley.
Surg. U.S. Vol.
Colonel and Medical Director
H.B. Fowler.
Surg. 12. N.H. Vol.
Surgeon in charge of
Point of Rocks hospital.
Geo. Jones.
Hospital Chaplain
1865. — Map (db m24826) HM |
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