Uprooted by War

Uprooted by War. . , Before you is the foundation of "Clermont," the center of a 525-acre plantation where Josiah Jordan III's family lived before the siege. Behind you and to your left were the quarters of twenty-two enslaved Black men, women, and children who lived and worked here. Presently, only the names of Fanny, James, Margaret, Abram, and Henry who were born between 1855 and 1862, are known., In 1862, enslaved and free Black men began building earthworks around Petersburg. Going from your right and running behind you the earthworks split the Jordan property., By the time the fighting arrived here on June 15, 1864, the Jordans had left. The destruction of the Jordan house during the war leaves us with little knowledge of this plantation and the people on it. No post-war family papers are known to exist. However, the Jordans returned to their destroyed house and chose to rebuild., Clermont's story played out in different ways after the war, with people uprooted in terms of loss, in terms of a new-found freedom, or both., How have the events of history shaped your family's story?, (Photo Captions), Jordan house in center background (two chimneys) and slave quarters foreground. Illustration by E. Forbes June 1864, US Army map detail of Jordan plantation, July 1864