The saddest year in Williamsburg’s history was 1862. The huge Union army of General George B. McClellan rolled up the Virginia peninsula from Old Point and overcame Confederate defenders of the town, centered around Fort Magruder, just east of Williamsburg.
From May 4, 1862 until Lee surrendered at Appomattox three years later, the 2,000 residents of Williamsburg were kept under military guard. Pickets patrolled the roadways and no one could enter or leave town without permission of Union army authorities.
Union soldiers stood guard at the William and Mary campus, on the lookout for Confederate spies. Occasionally, small groups of Confederate guerrilla fighters called “scouts” would surprise the town’s Yankee guards with lightning attacks to capture or kill Union soldiers. In retaliation in 1862, one Unionist set fire to the Wren Building on campus, and partly destroyed it.
When Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861, students and faculty at the College of William and Mary left, and volunteered as Confederates. President Benjamin Ewell, a West Point graduate, became a Confederate engineering officer to direct Peninsula defenses against Union attack.
Some houses and college buildings were looted of valuables, and many fences and outbuildings were used by the invaders for firewood. After peace came in 1865, the college reopened and Williamsburg began the arduous task of rebuilding. |
